[0:00] And you know, we always say sign in, but
we really don't want you to sign in.
[0:05] We want you to print so we'll know who you
are,
[0:08] because some of you got that doctor's
signature.
[0:11] But we're glad you're here, and we'd like
to— a couple of housekeeping items.
[0:16] Please silence your cell phones.
[0:18] And also at the front,
[0:20] we had a copy of the ordinance that we're
about to pass this evening.
[0:24] If you didn't get a copy of that, I've got
some copies here. Anybody want a copy?
[0:30] Didn't get a copy? I've got a couple here
and they'll be back on the table if you
[0:35] need them. And I want to turn it over to
Mayor Grimes and he's going to get us
[0:40] started. Thank you. Also, if you come up
to speak, speak into this microphone.
[0:46] And also, when you step up here, we'd like
to give your—
[0:49] like you to give your name and address.
And so we can record that as we go.
[0:54] All right, thank you.
[0:56] All right, thank you. Let's come to order.
And glad to see everybody.
[1:03] Appreciate you all coming and appreciate
your interest in what we're
[1:10] doing.
[1:14] The first—
[1:15] the next item on our agenda Our
introductions,
[1:18] and we'll begin with the city attorney.
[1:21] I'm Marshall Albritton, the city attorney.
David DeMarco, commissioner.
[1:25] Dale Grimes, mayor.
[1:27] Winston Evans, commissioner. Scott Price,
commissioner. Steve Collie, city manager.
[1:33] And we have some staff in the back.
Desiree Lohr, city recorder.
[1:37] Tommy Campsey, your second recorder.
[1:40] Jeff Sharp, building commissioner.
[1:42] Okay, thank you. Uh,
[1:44] please join me in the Pledge of
Allegiance.
[1:48] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of
[1:54] America and to the Republic for which it
stands,
[1:59] one nation under God, indivisible,
[2:03] with liberty and justice for all. Thank
you.
[2:14] Next item on our agenda is the approval of
the agenda,
[2:18] and I have one note for an agenda change,
and that would be that we move item 9,
[2:25] new business, both parts A and B, to— at
this point,
[2:30] right after we approve the agenda. So it
would go before number 5.
[2:36] Second.
[2:38] And I so move. Is there a second?
[2:41] Second.
[2:44] Any discussion? All in favor say aye.
[2:47] Aye.
[2:48] Any opposed? All right. That's 4-0.
[2:51] Any other changes to the agenda that are
proposed? All right.
[2:57] Seeing none, we will then move immediately
into new business number 9, which—
[3:04] and we will go to A.
[3:06] The public hearing on Ordinance 2026-05,
an ordinance of the City of Oak Hill,
[3:13] Tennessee, amending the Municipal Code,
Chapter 14, Zoning and Land Use Control,
[3:20] Section 14-123, Walls, Gatehouses, Entry
Monuments and Gates.
[3:25] So, the floor is now open for a public
hearing.
[3:30] And this is a formal part of the process.
[3:33] This is not just like public comments that
we have at all of our meetings,
[3:40] but this is actually a formal hearing
where we take residents' comments and
[3:47] where we take residents' comments and
their
[3:47] statements, their positions for or against
or for parts and against parts.
[3:54] And we welcome all of that and we have a
very—
[3:58] Thank you.
[3:58] Healthy crowd here, healthy-sized crowd
anyway.
[4:02] I hope you're all healthy too, but we're
glad, glad everyone's here.
[4:06] Just one note on this is that it's a
public hearing. It's not a colloquy.
[4:11] It's not a question and answer with the,
[4:14] with the commissioners or the city manager
or anybody up here unless,
[4:19] unless it's something that absolutely has
to be—
[4:22] Yes. Corrected.
[4:25] But other than that, please just make your
comments to us.
[4:30] We're here to listen to them. We've gotten
a number of comments in writing.
[4:35] These are just recent ones.
[4:37] We've had lots of them over the course of
the period of time that we've been
[4:43] discussing this fence ordinance, which has
been a number of months,
[4:48] and which I hope all or most of you have
been aware of,
[4:52] that it's something that's Yes. It's been
going on for quite some time.
[4:57] But we do have a proposed ordinance that
is before us. It's a formal thing.
[5:02] It was recommended by the Commission to
the Planning Commission.
[5:07] Planning Commission, as you know, held a
hearing at their last meeting in—
[5:12] earlier this month. And they had a hearing
and then they made their recommendations,
[5:19] which is part of the formal process under
state statute.
[5:23] And sent their views back to us. And we
have discussed it at a workshop.
[5:28] And I think that what you have seen in the
latest draft,
[5:32] which I believe there is a copy for
everybody, is that correct?
[5:37] Yes.
[5:37] Okay. So there should be a copy for
everybody at this table at the front.
[5:43] And that is what we are considering
tonight. And this is first reading.
[5:48] There will be a second reading in August.
[5:51] We are going to have to have a special
meeting for that, assuming it goes
[5:56] meeting for that, assuming it goes
forward,
[5:57] because we have 2 Commissioners who are
going to be rolling off the Commission
[6:03] August 28th when they are sworn in— when
their successors are sworn in.
[6:08] And so we will have a special called
meeting on August—
[6:12] 29th.
[6:13] What was that?
[6:13] 19th.
[6:13] August 19th?
[6:15] Yes, Wednesday, August 19th.
[6:16] Wednesday, August 19th at 6:00—
[6:19] No, 1:00.
[6:20] At 1:00, I'm sorry, 1:00 in the afternoon.
[6:23] That's when we'll have the second reading,
and only after that will it become law.
[6:28] So with all that, I invite any of you who
want to make a comment,
[6:33] speak here in this public hearing, to come
forward.
[6:36] And just be sure to state your name and
your address.
[6:40] Speak into the microphone, come to the
podium and speak in the microphone,
[6:44] and we'll be glad to hear you. So who
would like to be first? Come on up.
[6:49] I'm Miles McDonald. I live at 807 Forest
Acres Drive,
[6:55] just up the road, 3 houses in off Franklin
Road.
[7:01] Could you speak into the mic, if you
wouldn't mind?
[7:07] It's fine, but I'll adjust.
[7:10] Yeah, you can pull it out if you need to.
You can pull the mic, it'll separate.
[7:15] We'll get there in a few words.
[7:17] Oh.
[7:17] Is this okay? Yeah, that's good. Is this
all right? About 3 inches of the mic.
[7:21] Yeah, it doesn't pick up very far.
[7:24] Is this okay?
[7:25] Yeah, that's it. There we go.
[7:26] All right. So first thing,
[7:29] I'd like to point out that we have been
incorporated as a city for 74 years,
[7:35] since 1952. And to the extent that we have
a bucolic landscape today,
[7:41] I've got to ask you how we did that while
allowing chain link and solid cedar
[7:48] fences. They're all over Oak Hill. I'm 5
foot 10 or thereabouts.
[7:54] When I look at trees, I have a tendency to
look up, not look level to the ground.
[8:01] There's nothing about the cedar fence that
runs across my property at the rear line
[8:08] of my house that obscures the ash trees
and the crape myrtle in the backyard or
[8:15] and the crape myrtle in the backyard or
even
[8:15] part of the snowball that's above the
roofline.
[8:19] This ordinance does not seem to seek to
preserve the character of Oak Hill as much
[8:27] as it does to impose someone's aesthetic
sense On all of the residents of Oak Hill
[8:34] at the expense of increasing the cost to
residents to fence their yards while
[8:41] simultaneously prohibiting the most
durable and long-lasting type of fence,
[8:47] making fences much less capable of keeping
things in and keeping things out,
[8:54] one of their primary purposes, because of
the height restrictions,
[9:00] and removing residents' right to privacy.
in their own backyards.
[9:05] Nothing speaks more to this overbearing
imposition of aesthetic standards than
[9:12] imposition of aesthetic standards than
that
[9:13] residents in Zone A, B, and C can only
have a 4-foot fence in their backyard,
[9:19] but residents in Zone D, E, and F can have
a 5-foot fence.
[9:24] There's a similar disparity for front yard
fence height.
[9:29] I've got to ask, from a practical point of
view how the needs of those in A, B,
[9:36] and C differ from the practical needs of
those in D, E, and F.
[9:42] And by the way, if you go look,
[9:44] the recommended height for dogs for a
fence is 6 feet.
[9:49] The recommended height to keep deer out,
[9:53] according to a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln study, is 8 feet.
[9:58] I'm not recommending that we go with an
8-foot fence height, and in fact,
[10:04] you can go smaller than 8 feet as long as
you have a solid fence so the deer can't
[10:12] see where they're going to land. I have to
ask.
[10:16] There's a recommended color for fences.
[10:19] What is the problem with my cedar fence
being painted light gray,
[10:25] the same as my house and garden shed? I'm
at a loss.
[10:29] This ordinance allows 6-foot fences for
construction sites,
[10:35] but not for residents' yards. I've got to
ask you.
[10:39] Why is it that security of equipment and
materials is more important than the
[10:46] security of the residents of Oak Hill?
[10:49] There are no setback restrictions for
fences, as I read in here,
[10:55] in backyards from from the property lines.
[10:58] The ordinance requires that 90% of the
height of a vinyl-coated chain-link fence.
[11:05] Be obscured from the neighbor's view of
it.
[11:09] Does that mean if I put the fence adjacent
to the property line,
[11:15] I have to make landscaping decisions in my
neighbor's yard?
[11:20] Does it mean that I have to trespass in
order to prune and fertilize those plants?
[11:27] It's not well thought out.
[11:29] Is the obscuration requirement based upon
when the plants are mature,
[11:36] or is it from day one? There's a huge
difference in cost.
[11:40] Subject the obscuration requirements and
the landscaping subject to the
[11:47] the landscaping subject to the
satisfaction
[11:48] of the Board of Zoning Appeals—that just
doesn't cut it.
[11:53] Why would any resident of Oak Hill allow
an unelected board?
[11:58] to make landscaping decisions for them,
specific landscaping decisions. That's it.
[12:05] If I had wanted to live in a homeowners
association governed by busybody voyeurs,
[12:12] I would have done so.
[12:14] All right.
[12:15] But I chose—
[12:18] Let's please hold that.
[12:19] But I chose to live in Oak Hill. Let's not
screw it up.
[12:23] Thank you. Next person.
[12:27] Can I come up?
[12:28] Yes, ma'am.
[12:29] Yes. I missed the early discussions
[12:36] that went on. Can you give us your
[12:43] name and address, please, ma'am?
[12:51] Pardon me?
[12:51] Name and address. Oh, yes, of course.
[12:55] I'm Julie Jones, and I live at 1115
Ridgeview Drive.
[13:00] You want my phone number now too? Yeah, no
matter. That's good. Okay.
[13:07] My husband and I missed the early several
months of discussions about
[13:14] this matter, but we moved here to Oak Hill
When our daughter was 14,
[13:21] and she is now 54. What's made— what has
made Oak Hill special?
[13:27] Limit to residential and churches, variety
of lots of all sizes, shapes,
[13:35] and architectural styles. The streets,
they're not just a grid.
[13:41] They curve.
[13:43] They're straight, they're meandering, and
this is a sign of freedom.
[13:50] But Oak Hill is also uniquely restrictive.
[13:54] Single-family dwellings, one house, one
lot.
[13:58] I was appalled when one in our
neighborhood complained that she couldn't
[14:06] stand an unusual house that she couldn't
even see from her house.
[14:12] And she thought it should not be allowed.
[14:16] As a matter of fact, her own house was not
to everyone's taste either.
[14:23] The people attracted to the freedom and
the unique limitations need to
[14:30] preserve Oak Hill. The proposed highly
restrictive Ordinance limits freedoms
[14:37] and will affect property values at least
to some extent.
[14:43] This is true not only for teardowns, which
is where our house is,
[14:49] but also maybe to a lesser extent,
[14:52] but also existing structures who are put
off by—
[14:57] Okay.
[15:00] I can't even read my own writing.
[15:03] That are put off by opacity, for one
thing, and landscaping.
[15:08] As we were on our way here, I saw so much
lush— so much lush greenery.
[15:15] Most of it was natural greenery. Some of
it was landscaping, but not all.
[15:21] And some it was You know,
[15:23] natural up and then right around the house
there was beautiful landscaping.
[15:30] But there's a big difference between
requiring landscaping here and there and
[15:37] requiring landscaping here and there and
let it
[15:37] be where the homeowners want to pay for it
and love and like it to be lovely,
[15:44] but not to make everybody else mow down
their natural greenery and replace it.
[15:52] Yes.
[15:55] If this goes back to the property values,
[15:59] why would someone want to come into Oak
Hill in situations that will require an
[16:06] expert to interpret and apply all the
detail in this proposed ordinance.
[16:12] And another problem is that people might
not want to live where there is set up the
[16:20] potential for conflict with neighbors. You
know, you're not supposed to have that.
[16:27] That's in the ordinance. Well, but I We
got a variance.
[16:32] What do you mean you got a variance?
[16:35] And speaking of a variance, okay,
[16:38] so let's say if you don't want to do
something that's in the ordinance, oh
[16:45] something that's in the ordinance, oh
well,
[16:45] you can just come get a variance.
[16:48] Well, now that takes delay, it takes
planning,
[16:52] sometimes it takes a lawyer to present
your case,
[16:57] and it certainly has a potential for
significant Delay,
[17:02] because you can't just waltz in any day
and say, well, I want a variance now,
[17:09] here it is. You know, there are all these
old clichés. Time is money.
[17:15] Delay is the enemy of something. I
couldn't remember what.
[17:20] But what is limited for all of us so that
if we want a variance but have to put off
[17:27] construction, remodeling, repainting
changes and pay for that expert.
[17:34] Maybe some people just don't want to fool
at it.
[17:38] They come and look at your lovely home and
they think, well, this is a lovely home,
[17:45] and somebody says, well, you know, these
changes need to be made,
[17:51] or you have to comply with this, and they
go, well,
[17:56] we saw another really nice house in X
community, maybe we'll— Go somewhere else.
[18:03] Think this over. So I'm not, I'm not
attacking specific items in this,
[18:09] although we do have plans to put in a
smaller area than our horrible chain-link
[18:16] fence that got made looking awful during
the storm.
[18:21] So we are Going to have a smaller area.
We've measured it.
[18:26] It's my understanding that if it's not
more than 6 feet, it should be okay.
[18:33] And we want it to be one of the required
colors, which are green, brown, black,
[18:40] or white. And so we decided on brown, and
then I looked more carefully.
[18:46] Well, it can't just be brown. It has to be
dark brown.
[18:51] So the fellow who's going to put our
fencing in,
[18:55] he's on the search for some dark brown.
[18:59] We are, we are more likely to be a
teardown considering how old our house has
[19:06] teardown considering how old our house has
been
[19:06] there. The problem is all the time we've
been there,
[19:11] we have accumulated things that relate
most dearly to us and our family.
[19:17] family, or to my desire to have been an
interior designer when I couldn't do that.
[19:25] And so for us to move out would be a
humongous task.
[19:29] It would be the biggest yard sale and the
saddest yard sale for us that we've ever
[19:37] seen. I can imagine.
[19:39] So we're trying to figure out how we can
afford to keep the house at its present
[19:46] value and not sell it for enough so that
we could live in one of the bigger houses
[19:53] in O'Keeffe. So that's all I have to say.
I am a little bit emotional about this.
[20:00] I was afraid— actually, I have this
allergy and I tend to sort of tear up.
[20:07] And one of the things I'm allergic to is
speaking before a group of highly
[20:14] intelligent but not necessarily agreeing
group of wonderful people. Thank you.
[20:21] Thank you. Okay, we'll be here all night.
[20:26] Okay, who's, who's going to be next?
[20:31] Yes, please come forward. Okay.
[20:36] My name is Rafael C.,
[20:39] and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and
my
[20:45] wife, Dr.
[20:46] Sarah C., who unfortunately cannot be here
because
[20:51] of illness. We are over at 913 Van Leer
Drive.
[20:55] S-E-E?
[20:56] What's that?
[20:56] S-E-E. Yeah, I signed in. I printed. Okay.
Thank you.
[21:00] Well, Sarah and I have followed the
conversation on fencing closely over the
[21:05] conversation on fencing closely over the
last
[21:05] year and we wanted to mention our
concerns.
[21:08] Our concern is that the current revision
as it stands does not represent all parts
[21:14] of the city fairly. Oak Hill is a very
diverse city in terms of lot sizes,
[21:19] home construction, topography,
[21:21] and the concerns of citizens on 3 acres of
rolling property are very different from
[21:27] someone living on a 10th of an acre in
another area of Oak Hill.
[21:31] Zoning ordinances in Oak Hill have
historically been differentiated by the
[21:36] historically been differentiated by the
zones of
[21:37] the city according on lot sizes,
[21:39] and we feel that the ordinance being
presented should be no different.
[21:44] Bucolic views are not available in many
areas of Oak Hill.
[21:48] Just as a baseline reality.
[21:49] And while this ordinance may be suitable
for lot sizes of in excess of around 2
[21:55] acres, it is— we don't believe it is
appropriate for smaller lots in denser
[22:00] neighborhoods. Furthermore, as parents of
young children in this day and age,
[22:05] we unfortunately cannot assume that
everyone enjoying our view of the backyard
[22:11] everyone enjoying our view of the backyard
has
[22:11] the children's best interests at heart.
[22:13] As an example, in the street next to ours,
[22:16] a homeless person illegally occupied a
partially demolished property for months
[22:22] before he was discovered.
[22:23] As aforementioned, there's construction
all the time,
[22:27] a lot of current turnover with people
moving in and out of our—
[22:31] of the neighborhoods.
[22:33] An enclosed backyard is an area in which
there should be a reasonable expectation
[22:38] there should be a reasonable expectation
of
[22:39] privacy, and the privacy fence is a key
component in providing that safety and
[22:44] security.
[22:45] Yes.
[22:46] Our preference would be for a 6-foot limit
on all rear yard fencing,
[22:50] although a 5-foot privacy fence within the
setbacks of the property of the backyard
[22:55] could be a reasonable compromise.
[22:57] However, we firmly believe that 50%
opacity is not adequate privacy,
[23:01] especially particularly for families with
young children,
[23:04] and unfortunately relying on a 5-foot
privacy fence is not adequate.
[23:08] Evergreens and tree covers, as we've all
recently experienced,
[23:12] is unreliable due to loss, disease, and
storm damage.
[23:15] So in conclusion, while we also love the
views provided by the larger lots in parts
[23:20] of Oak Hill as much as anyone, we believe
that this—
[23:24] that the privacy and security for young
families who have chosen to raise their
[23:28] children here must be strongly considered
to equal or greater importance.
[23:33] We are grateful to have leadership that
works hard to meet the needs of all its
[23:37] constituents, and we are appreciative of
your time and efforts that ask that we
[23:42] continue working on this ordinance to make
Oak Hill family-friendly for neighbors in
[23:47] all parts of the city. Thank you.
[23:49] Thank you. Thank you.
[23:52] I'm going to have to get out my
[23:56] gavel again now.
[24:02] Michael Carlson. I live at 993 Overton Lee
Road with my wife Patricia,
[24:08] who couldn't be here tonight because she's
caring for her 99-and-a-half-year-old
[24:15] father in West Tennessee.
[24:17] First of all, I commend all of you for the
hard work and effort you've put into
[24:24] this, and the Planning Commission and the
city staff.
[24:28] And for most of it, I'm in favor of most
of the provisions.
[24:33] But I noticed when I looked over what we
received in the mail,
[24:39] the version for the notice of public
hearing and what's published on the
[24:45] hearing and what's published on the
website
[24:45] have some important differences. And I
don't know if anybody else noticed that.
[24:52] I assume that what we got this evening is
what we're discussing,
[24:58] but what we received in the mail has some
important differences. Yes.
[25:04] Important differences that let me just
point out briefly.
[25:08] First of all, under the definitions
section,
[25:12] the mailed version has no definition for a
chain link fence,
[25:17] whereas the online version does.
[25:20] In terms of the height and location of
fences,
[25:24] as I think has been measured already or
mentioned already,
[25:29] The online version says no front yard
fences in Districts A, B, and C,
[25:35] whereas the mailed version said 3-foot
fences in the front yard.
[25:40] And then probably most importantly, the
final section in the mailed version,
[25:47] Section E, refers to existing walls,
fences,
[25:50] and associated structures that would be
grandfathered in.
[25:55] And can be repaired or replaced as they
currently exist.
[26:00] And that verbiage has been left out of the
mailed version.
[26:05] So I'm glad to see that it's in the online
version.
[26:09] I particularly like the restrictions on
retaining walls.
[26:14] And restrictions about concrete block
walls without any facing.
[26:19] But as many of the people commented
already, I think it's a bit
[26:25] already, I think it's a bit
over-restrictive.
[26:26] I live in residential zone F, the largest
minimum lot size, 4-acre minimums.
[26:33] Many of my neighbors have 8, 10 acres or
or more.
[26:37] And I think it's unreasonable to restrict
fence size in those large lots to 4 or 5
[26:44] feet. I would be strongly in favor of
6-foot fences in all yards in District F,
[26:51] especially in rear and side yards.
[26:53] I think chain-link fences should be
black-clad only because The black clad
[27:00] essentially causes the fence to disappear
and it blends into the background better.
[27:07] I agree that it's unreasonable to require
the BZA to approve our landscaping of
[27:14] chain link fences. I don't think that's
something that we need to do.
[27:19] As an example of why I think we need
6-foot fences In our zone,
[27:25] a couple of years ago, our neighbor, Judge
Gloria Dumas and her husband Ken Lavitan,
[27:32] discovered a homeless man living in their
outdoor shed.
[27:37] He'd been living there apparently for
several weeks.
[27:41] He was sleeping in the shed and taking
water from their outdoor spigot.
[27:47] And when she saw him and called the
police,
[27:51] This man fled up into the woods behind our
house,
[27:55] and that was quite alarming to my wife,
who was home alone at the time.
[28:01] In addition, we're inundated with deer and
coyote,
[28:05] and so a six-foot fence would at least
help to discourage them.
[28:11] It may not totally prevent the deer, but
it would at least discourage them and.
[28:17] Perhaps a solid privacy fence would do the
job.
[28:21] And then lastly, I think fences should be
allowed on public easements as long as the
[28:28] utility has reasonable access to the
easement.
[28:32] As an example, in our yard,
[28:35] we have a 20-foot-wide public sewer
easement that crosses deeply into our
[28:41] easement that crosses deeply into our
front
[28:41] yard, and at the apex It's probably 150
feet off of our front property line.
[28:48] So if we had to make a fence around that,
that would—
[28:52] that would not be the aesthetics I don't
think anybody would be interested in.
[28:59] Thank you.
[29:00] Thank you.
[29:03] All right.
[29:07] Next person who
[29:13] would like to come
[29:20] Vishnu Jayamohan.
[29:26] I'm here with my wife, Katarina Jayamohan,
and we live at 835 Brentview Drive.
[29:30] I couldn't quite hear you. I'm sorry.
[29:31] I won't make you spell the name out, so
I'll give you my credit card.
[29:35] Okay, good, very good. Thank you.
[29:36] Credit card.
[29:37] What is your address, please? 835
Brentview Drive, just about a mile up the
[29:42] Brentview Drive, just about a mile up the
road.
[29:43] Appreciate your time today and indeed
everybody else's.
[29:47] Thank you for the credit card back, by the
way.
[29:50] One of the reasons, you know, one of the
reasons we moved to Oak Hill, among
[29:55] reasons we moved to Oak Hill, among
others,
[29:56] Yes. One of the reasons I chose the area
was some of the reasons that have been
[30:01] pointed out here, the variety that you see
in the homes.
[30:05] You get large lots, small lots,
[30:07] older homes and multimillion-dollar new
construction.
[30:11] And it brings with it a really healthy mix
of backgrounds and folks.
[30:16] And I think that really is— I was a little
bit surprised to read about, you know,
[30:21] the character is defined very much by the
bucolic landscape.
[30:25] I think, personally,
[30:27] I think the character is defined by the
people in the neighborhood.
[30:31] We used to live in a neighborhood with an
HOA and with it, it has many,
[30:36] many benefits. To me, they kinda layer up
on sort of, let's say, to be a bit nerdy,
[30:42] Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
[30:44] And so, you have your security,
[30:46] but then HOA above that gives you kind of
a very homogeneous look,
[30:51] a very repeatable landscape and certain
conditions.
[30:54] That's not the reason we moved to Oak
Hill.
[30:57] It's one of the reasons we left HOA and we
moved to a neighborhood like Oak Hill
[31:03] where there is this beautiful differences
and diversity.
[31:07] We live— we're fortunate to live on a
larger lot and for us,
[31:11] I'm struggling to understand how, when I
look at that triangle,
[31:15] I think any neighborhood deserves to have—
Yes. A level of security.
[31:20] I shouldn't be able to necessarily
infringe on my neighbor's aesthetics or,
[31:25] or comfort. Me on 3 acres putting up a
fence of really any height that's not
[31:31] fence of really any height that's not
visible
[31:31] to any home on any direction, no matter
how tall I go,
[31:35] or at least if I go anything less than 15
feet, to me just doesn't quite—
[31:40] I don't quite understand how that becomes
an issue.
[31:44] And is it really worth committing
resources to enforce a permit around that
[31:49] resources to enforce a permit around that
and then
[31:49] really tell me what— how it should be
done?
[31:52] We are very fortunate to have a lot of
deer on our property.
[31:56] We're also fortunate to have a very active
German Shepherd,
[32:01] and those two don't always mix very well.
[32:03] But we love the deer, so we try to keep
her in.
[32:07] But my point is to say that If at some
point I felt the need to put up a fence
[32:12] point I felt the need to put up a fence
that
[32:12] again is completely not visible to anyone
in any direction,
[32:16] and it happens to be eight feet tall and
have zero or a hundred percent blockage or
[32:22] opacity, I think that's that's a
reasonable ask.
[32:26] And so I think while the spirit of it is
intended to preserve the aesthetic,
[32:31] I highly urge you to.
[32:32] to consider what really makes Oak Hill Oak
Hill,
[32:36] which I think is a little bit more than
the aesthetic.
[32:39] And secondly, if it's done in somebody's
backyard,
[32:43] they're doing what they want to do.
[32:45] That also is very much part of what brings
wonderful people to Oak Hill.
[32:50] So that's it. Thank you.
[32:52] Thank you.
[32:53] One, just a little clarification.
[32:57] I did verify with my neighbor right here
that I said we
[33:05] wanted a 6-foot chain-link fence.
[33:09] We have 5-inch increments,
[33:13] and my confusion is that 5 feet is 6 feet
inches.
[33:19] I don't propose 6 of them.
[33:23] All right. Okay. Please come forward.
[33:25] Thank you. Good evening. My name is Dan
Benedetti. I live at 852 Glendale Lane.
[33:31] My wife is not here,
[33:32] but she and I were at a prior meeting on
this topic last fall that was, I would
[33:38] this topic last fall that was, I would
say,
[33:38] similarly passionate and a large group of
people at that time that really weighed in
[33:45] on how seemingly unnecessarily restrictive
this was on people's freedom to protect
[33:51] their homes with fences of locations and
sizes that they wanted.
[33:55] And so we were very surprised to see the
revised version of this preserve much of
[34:01] the language that would restrict people
from putting in fences where they feel is
[34:07] appropriate for the safety of their homes.
We live on Glendale Lane.
[34:12] At some point, that street was not a
cut-through,
[34:16] but it is very common now that when we try
and leave Glendale and go out to Franklin
[34:22] Yes. We find the street backed up to the
Governor's Mansion.
[34:26] We have to wait 10 to 20 minutes to get
out if you want to go that way.
[34:32] People drive down that road that aren't
residents of Oak Hill.
[34:36] And so we very much are worried about the
ability to put in a fence that we would
[34:42] want to protect our young children who can
play in their backyard.
[34:47] We remodeled our home Not too long ago and
planned with the design to be able to put
[34:53] our fence in based on the current
language. We have bids right now.
[34:59] Our current fence, we have a permit for
it.
[35:01] If this goes into effect,
[35:02] we are going to have to break a contract
probably with the fence company because
[35:07] what is—
[35:07] we are a corner lot.
[35:09] What is deemed the back of our house would
actually shrink our fenceable property
[35:14] dramatically. It just doesn't make sense.
This isn't necessary.
[35:18] I was walking around the neighborhood and
looking at mostly Lot C homes,
[35:22] which ours is, and there are many fences
that go up to— within people's front
[35:27] that go up to— within people's front
yards.
[35:28] There's not so many, though,
[35:29] that it makes it impossible to look around
and see beautiful yards and trees.
[35:34] This just doesn't seem like there's an
epidemic of people throwing up fences that
[35:39] are ruining the nature of our
neighborhood. Thank you. Neighborhood.
[35:44] We've been here for 8 years and I have not
seen this influx of fences go up.
[35:48] So this feels like just an unnecessary
step to make our—
[35:52] infringe upon our ability to design the
homes and our yards the way we want.
[35:57] Our neighbor across the street from us is
a D lot,
[36:00] so they get different rules than we do.
[36:02] I think some of it has to do with size of
lots, but also the The streets, right?
[36:07] The if you're down on Crestwood or sorry
Curtiswood, that's a big street.
[36:12] A lot of people drive on it.
[36:14] A lot of those are the lot Ds that can
have a fence in their front yard if they
[36:19] want. So our neighbor can, but we can't
because we're on the border between C and
[36:24] because we're on the border between C and
D.
[36:24] It just the inconsistency doesn't make
sense. We have dogs.
[36:28] They are going to be out there,
[36:30] and we want to be able to have enough of a
fence in place with enough.
[36:34] Privacy so that they're not just barking
at every person that walks by our home.
[36:39] Again, it's a relatively busy street,
[36:41] and yet because of the lovely nature of
our neighborhood, there aren't sidewalks.
[36:46] People still are walking all around
Glendale.
[36:49] Our dogs will be out there barking at
people,
[36:52] and we will have to constantly be pulling
them in and out of the home just for the
[36:57] nature of someone walking their dog past
our house.
[37:00] The ability to have a privacy fence
protects They won't see those dogs walking
[37:05] protects They won't see those dogs walking
by.
[37:06] We won't have to hear from our neighbors,
hey, your dogs are barking again,
[37:10] that's really annoying.
[37:12] Again, there's many reasons why the degree
of restriction—
[37:15] I'm struck by the current section 123 is
one paragraph.
[37:19] So now we're going from one paragraph to 5
full pages of new restrictions that need
[37:24] to be monitored For a reason that still
has not been made clear to me.
[37:29] I just— I think we need to step back and
really pare this down to what is truly
[37:33] necessary to preserve things and yet gives
the citizens of Oak Hill the freedom to
[37:39] make decisions for their own property and
their own families. Thank you.
[37:43] Thank you. Okay. I'm going to ask you one
more question. I'll say it one more time.
[37:49] Yeah, I worked for a federal judge when I
first got out of law school.
[37:54] His name was Clure Morton.
[37:56] I don't know if any of you still remember
Judge Morton, but yes,
[38:01] my co-clerk recognized the name.
[38:04] Anyway, he— when he put down the mallet,
when he put down the gavel,
[38:09] we had a room full of A courtroom full of
spectators came in for one particular case
[38:15] that everybody were all very interested
in, public interest kind of thing.
[38:20] And the first time there was applause, I'm
telling you what,
[38:25] I thought that they were all going to be
in jail.
[38:28] So Judge Morton didn't put up with it.
[38:31] So I'm being— I'm being— I'm being— trying
to be lenient,
[38:35] but please just let us keep on going
without applause. Thank you. So next
[38:41] without applause. Thank you. So next
person.
[38:41] Love to hear from you.
[38:43] My name is John Patterson.
[38:46] I live at 926 Van Leer Drive, and I've
been there for 28 years.
[38:52] I really appreciate the effort and time
that the commissioners and Oak
[39:00] Hill— City of Oak Hill is put into this.
[39:04] It's a— no good deed goes unpunished. And
situations change, cities change.
[39:13] I've been in construction for over 50
years, 3 different countries.
[39:20] I'm a general contractor, commercial,
industrial, residential.
[39:27] We develop property and own property.
[39:31] Right.
[39:33] This is a standard issue that comes up and
up.
[39:37] And everyone says, oh, I want all the
freedom I can get.
[39:40] Well, the better and more valuable the
property,
[39:44] the more restrictions that are on it.
[39:47] And it's because of time and issues that
keep coming up that someone says, oh,
[39:52] I didn't know you could build an 8-foot
fence around your property.
[39:57] And then there's a big discussion and they
put a restriction on the fence.
[40:02] You can do anything you want if you go to
Somalia, but you go to New York City,
[40:08] Belle Meade, you're going to have
restrictions everywhere.
[40:12] And that's what keeps property values up,
believe it or not.
[40:16] If you want freedom to do what you want,
go to Donaldson.
[40:20] You can put an 18-car garage there. You
cannot do that in this city.
[40:25] You cannot have density in the city.
[40:27] Everything you guys do is a restriction on
my rights to do whatever I want with my
[40:33] property. That's the whole code you do.
[40:36] It sets an understanding on how to do
business within the city.
[40:41] You can't put 2 houses on a lot here.
Well, that's a restriction on your
[40:46] Well, that's a restriction on your
ability.
[40:46] And the issue with fences in particular,
[40:49] as opposed to anything that comes before
the board, is when you build a fence,
[40:55] your neighbours get a fence whether
Whether they like it or not.
[40:59] That is a real issue.
[41:01] Now, if I add a bathroom to my property or
I add a garage, you don't get a garage.
[41:06] But with a fence, if I put an 8-foot fence
all around my property,
[41:11] all my neighbours get an 8-foot fence.
[41:14] And therefore, there is an implied
understanding what is there going to—
[41:19] there needs to be some guidelines on what
needs to happen.
[41:23] And when you put up a fence, And it is
within code. It is for perpetuity.
[41:28] And we've been there 30 years,
[41:30] and you could have a fence on that line
for 100 years.
[41:34] So this is not just about, I want all the
freedoms I can get.
[41:38] If you go to a fancy neighborhood, you're
going to have a ton of restrictions.
[41:44] It's just the way it is.
[41:46] And I spoke with passion about this thing
a number of times.
[41:50] It is the front yards where if you fence,
[41:53] you will have a really impact on the whole
landscape of the whole street.
[41:58] In the backyard, when you're private, you
can—
[42:01] I'm sorry.
[42:05] You can— there is a requirement for dogs'
privacy.
[42:09] The front yard is the streetscape, which
is open to everybody.
[42:13] As we used to say when we designed
gardens,
[42:16] it is the connection between your property
and the world.
[42:20] Also, one of the things I used to do and
train with is the police force.
[42:25] And a fenced yard, a back fenced yard, or
Although you think you keep people out,
[42:30] when someone— when we do home invasions,
you run into your backyard,
[42:35] they will get you because you cannot run
anywhere.
[42:39] If you've got an open backyard, you can
get to neighbours, you can get to help.
[42:44] Having done that in a number of precincts,
a fence you think will keep people out,
[42:50] but it stops you from getting away.
[42:52] And having— on a home invasion— And the
training we did—
[42:56] Is you always want to leave. You want to
leave your premises.
[43:00] Don't stand there and guard it. Leave your
premises and go.
[43:04] Everything can be replaced.
[43:06] And by fencing it in, you put an 8-foot
fence around your house,
[43:10] you're going nowhere.
[43:12] So while it is considered— stops people
coming in,
[43:15] it also stops people from going out. And
that is a major safety concern.
[43:20] And I appreciate your time.
[43:22] Thank you.
[43:22] I appreciate your effort on this
difficult—
[43:25] every code is going to tick somebody off,
it just is.
[43:29] Thank you. Thank you.
[43:33] Thank you. Good evening. Austin McMullen,
955 Greerland Drive. Drive.
[43:39] I agree with many of the comments that
have been made expressing concerns about
[43:45] have been made expressing concerns about
the
[43:45] ordinance. The gentleman who lives on
Glendale Lane mentioned that there is an
[43:52] existing ordinance already that's one
paragraph long,
[43:56] and so nobody nobody is arguing that there
shouldn't be some sort of restriction.
[44:03] There is a restriction in place, and part
of that is that it limits any.
[44:09] Fence to 6 feet. So there's already that
restriction in place.
[44:14] But you're hearing a lot of people who are
concerned about going further,
[44:20] which is what this several-page-long
ordinance does.
[44:24] I know for me, I'm concerned about the
opaqueness requirement.
[44:29] 50% has to be see-through.
[44:31] The height restriction and the complete
prohibition on Thank you.
[44:37] I think all of those go too far,
[44:39] and it seems like a lot of other people
who are here tonight agree with that.
[44:46] One other point that I would make is that
this proposed ordinance,
[44:51] it increases the burdens both on the
residents,
[44:55] but it also increases the burdens on the
city because it is It is going to require
[45:02] city because it is It is going to require
a
[45:02] lot more permitting and hearings and
things like that to take place, BZA
[45:08] things like that to take place, BZA
hearings.
[45:08] The city zoning official and city staff
are going to have to do a lot more work on
[45:15] permitting of things under this ordinance.
[45:19] And, you know, you've got a limited staff
already.
[45:23] I don't think you want to be imposing more
restrictions on them for something that—
[45:30] Yes.
[45:31] You know, I think a lot of people are
against.
[45:33] So my recommendation would be to, to, uh,
to not move forward with this.
[45:37] I know y'all have put a lot of time into
it.
[45:40] Uh, and I respect that and I appreciate
all of your efforts.
[45:45] Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank
you. Uh, next, next person.
[45:50] Do we have someone who wishes to speak?
[45:56] I wouldn't be last.
[45:59] You may be.
[46:02] My name is Vicki
[46:07] McNamara.
[46:10] I live at 4621 Franklin Pike, and I have
been here as of August 1st, 35 years.
[46:16] I look around the room, a lot of you are
in the same bracket Age-wise,
[46:21] kind of with me. Cities do change. Our
city is changing.
[46:25] It's interesting to see who's here
tonight, and a lot of the newcomers are
[46:30] tonight, and a lot of the newcomers are
not.
[46:31] That's fine. I want to keep it to one— 2
things.
[46:34] 6-foot privacy fences, we already have a
restriction, and I think that's enough.
[46:40] I've talked to David and I've talked to
Winston, they know how I feel.
[46:45] I don't know whether it matters or not.
[46:48] And the aspect of being opaque, I think
that's important.
[46:52] I took some notes for things that people
had said.
[46:56] They talk about a fence is boundary, it's
security,
[46:59] it's protection for your children and your
dogs. It also protects the wildlife.
[47:05] I have a 6-foot privacy fence.
[47:07] I had a 6-foot privacy fence back in 1991
when I bought the house. It was there.
[47:13] I've repaired it and replaced it over the
years, but it was there.
[47:18] It was there to make my gardens look
prettier,
[47:21] which I've tried to maintain over the last
35 years.
[47:25] So we already have a fence restriction,
and having an opaque fence,
[47:30] if you drive up and down, you're going to
see I see a lot of them.
[47:35] There are stone walls. There are walls
covered. There are wooden fences.
[47:40] There are— there's so many. Go down
Franklin Road. You can't see any.
[47:45] My 2 doors down from me, you can't see in
the house, anywhere in the yard,
[47:50] because there's a huge wall. And they've
even put black paper over the gates.
[47:56] So for their construction that's been
going on for 2 years. Anyway.
[48:01] That is another subject for another day.
[48:04] Regarding the bucolic views, if I look in
one direction, I have a privacy fence.
[48:10] The reason I have it is because I don't
want to see what the neighbors are doing,
[48:16] particularly. Sometimes they've been
interesting and I didn't want to see them.
[48:21] Now I don't want to see them because
they're building a 15,000-square-foot
[48:27] they're building a 15,000-square-foot
house.
[48:27] That's 15,000-square-foot right.
[48:29] house next door to me, and I'm going to
have construction again for 2 years.
[48:35] I can turn the other way, and because I
own the next 7 acres, it's pretty.
[48:40] My neighbors are really far away.
[48:43] You know, the best fence is space, but we
can't all have that.
[48:47] So I don't think there's anything wrong
with us having a 6-foot fence and it being
[48:53] opaque. It's okay.
[48:55] Thank you.
[48:55] You can still see the world.
[48:57] So I would recommend that y'all table this
or at least change parts of it so that
[49:04] it's— apparently the vast majority of
people don't mind having a 6-foot fence.
[49:09] And they live here and they love 4-plank
fences and they love lush landscaping and
[49:16] we love the diversity of neighbors.
[49:18] So I would like to consideration for those
thoughts. Thank you.
[49:23] Thank you very much. Yes, sir.
[49:28] My name is Matt Hearn.
[49:30] My wife Mary and I have lived at 895 Van
Leer Drive for the past 27 years and
[49:36] Leer Drive for the past 27 years and
raised
[49:36] our 2 sons here. As the discussion tonight
has shown, this is not a simple issue.
[49:43] This is complicated.
[49:45] Living on Franklin Road on an estate that
is 4, 5, 6,
[49:49] or 10 acres is a very different thing from
living on Van Leer Drive on 1 acre.
[49:55] There are different considerations for
those 2 different areas of the place we
[50:01] those 2 different areas of the place we
call
[50:02] Oak Hill. They are 2 very different
neighborhoods with very different
[50:07] neighborhoods with very different
concerns.
[50:08] I can't afford a fence-free vista. Because
my lot is only about 100 yards wide.
[50:14] And what my— what someone mentioned about
the fact that if my neighbor puts up a
[50:21] fence from his back line all the way down
the side of our property line into the
[50:27] ditch and it's 6 or 8 feet high, I have a
6 or 8-foot-high fence to look at.
[50:33] And if my neighbor on the other side puts
one up, I'm fenced in.
[50:38] Right.
[50:39] I didn't want a fence, but now I have to
live with 2 of them.
[50:43] And when I pull out of my driveway,
[50:45] I have to pull out far enough to see if I
can see what's coming over the hill around
[50:50] the fence. Children who are playing in the
driveway can't see the cars coming.
[50:55] My point is, this is a complicated issue
and Oak Hill is not a single neighborhood.
[51:00] It's a set of different neighborhoods,
each which has its own issues.
[51:04] Thank you.
[51:04] its own different kinds of character.
[51:07] I think the fact that we are having this
discussion is an attempt to address the
[51:13] fact that we don't all feel the same about
what our particular neighborhood should
[51:19] look like and how it should be protected
in order to maintain the kind of a
[51:25] neighborhood it is. When I walk around my
neighborhood,
[51:29] I don't walk around looking at the tops of
the trees because I'll fall into a ditch,
[51:35] but I walk around looking at the beautiful
yards. I see my neighbors on their porch.
[51:41] We wave at each other. Our children come
out and play. We walk our dogs together.
[51:47] If I lived on Overton Lee or if I lived on
Franklin Pike,
[51:52] I wouldn't be walking the neighborhood
that way.
[51:55] It's a different world, different kinds of
properties.
[51:59] And so I think this is not a simple issue
of freedom or no freedom.
[52:04] It's certainly not an HOA or no HOA issue.
[52:07] It's an issue that's complex because we
have a complex city with different,
[52:13] differently flavored, differently layered
neighborhoods.
[52:17] And a restriction, although it's
complicated and aggravating,
[52:22] And it's doomed not to make everybody
happy all the time.
[52:26] An ordinance that protects the specific
neighborhood qualities of the different
[52:32] neighborhood qualities of the different
Oak
[52:32] Hill neighborhoods is unfortunately
something we need because without any kind
[52:38] something we need because without any kind
of
[52:38] more complex restriction,
[52:40] my neighborhood is going to start to look
like Franklin Road.
[52:45] That's not a— That's not the kind of a
world those of us in our particular Oak
[52:50] world those of us in our particular Oak
Hill
[52:51] neighborhood want to live in.
[52:53] On the other hand, I recognize absolutely
that if I did live on Franklin Road,
[52:59] I would want those kinds of fences. My lot
is a different kind of lot.
[53:04] I'm not looking for a neighborhood if I
live on Franklin Road.
[53:09] I'm looking for a large piece of property.
[53:12] In my neighborhood, I'm looking place to
raise my kids and walk my dogs.
[53:17] That's what's really making your job
really complicated,
[53:21] and I hope that you will not assume that
no regulation is better regulation or that
[53:27] one size fits all. Thank you.
[53:30] Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yes, sir.
[53:35] Hi. My name is Harold Lambert. I live at
1024 Gateway Lane. Actually, I'm a newbie.
[53:40] I've been in here about 3 years,
[53:42] and I've been in your position in several
communities I lived in,
[53:46] and I think it's important to consider
what is being said.
[53:49] I think this turnout says a lot about the
overall concern.
[53:53] I think one thing is interesting is that I
think fences are complicated.
[53:57] I don't think there is necessarily a
broad-based solution,
[54:00] but it seems like to me that this solution
doesn't.
[54:03] I'm not sure what problem we're trying to
solve.
[54:06] I couldn't see that in the information
that I saw.
[54:09] And my wife, who is a very intelligent
woman, always says,
[54:12] what problem are we trying to solve?
What's broken?
[54:15] And maybe that would help understand, you
know,
[54:18] what's driving the broad-based changes.
[54:20] And I think there's been a lot of concerns
brought up tonight about, you know,
[54:25] different fences that in some communities
don't work.
[54:28] I think Visibility when you're exiting a
property certainly can be a factor if the
[54:32] fence is, you know, blocking that.
[54:34] But does that mean someone can't have a
fence in their yard that's only 3 feet
[54:39] fence in their yard that's only 3 feet
high?
[54:39] That peculiar— is very peculiar to me, the
3-foot height.
[54:43] It seems like someone decided
aesthetically that was what was going to
[54:47] aesthetically that was what was going to
look good.
[54:47] And I drove around and measured a bunch of
fences before I came here,
[54:51] and it's interesting. I have an acre and a
third.
[54:54] A lot of my neighbors across from me will
2 acres or more.
[54:57] And it does seem weird to me, why would
they have a differentiation?
[55:01] I think on impervious, you know, land and
that kind of stuff, it makes sense, right?
[55:06] But when it comes to fences,
[55:08] why should they be able to have a fence in
their front yard that's different than
[55:12] mine when I look right across the street
at it, right?
[55:16] The other thing is, I think,
[55:17] is interesting is that I think dogs and
privacy and personal security, I think,
[55:22] is really hard to measure broad-based on a
piece of paper. Right?
[55:26] Some people, if they feel more secure in a
different kind of fence,
[55:29] I think that's important to kind of
consider that.
[55:32] You know, I have an iron fence and it's
not only expensive to do it,
[55:36] I think it was $30,000 or something, but
in addition to that,
[55:40] I spent another $5,000 because it didn't
keep skunks out or small dogs, right?
[55:44] So the cost is a factor. Is it, you know,
acceptable for everybody?
[55:48] Yes.
[55:49] I think the cost has been brought up a
little bit tonight,
[55:52] and I think that's something that's fair
to weigh that.
[55:54] And maybe, you know,
[55:55] a good policy would be to focus on quality
and aesthetics that says, hey,
[55:59] if there's deterioration of a fence, is
that— you know,
[56:02] I don't know if we're already addressing
that or not,
[56:04] but maybe that's part of what a good fence
policy is,
[56:07] is that if we're concerned about how they
look and that kind of stuff,
[56:10] that people are required to keep, you
know, keep maintaining them.
[56:13] Thank you.
[56:16] I did make a list of some fences I thought
were interesting on Suwannee and at like
[56:23] 1143 Suwannee Road. That fence has been
there probably 50-some years, and it's—
[56:29] I don't know if anyone lives at that
house, but it's a beautiful home,
[56:35] but it's half stone and half iron at the
top, right? And it looks fine.
[56:41] It's 48 inches high.
[56:42] And it makes me think, well,
[56:45] why would someone not be able to do
something similar that would look nice,
[56:51] something similar that would look nice,
right?
[56:51] Why does it have to only be 3 feet?
[56:54] So I'm struggling with the 3 feet number,
especially when I think we live in a,
[57:00] you know, sometimes where people are
trying to maintain dogs into an area,
[57:07] and I'm not sure if 3 feet does it for
everyone's security and enclosure of their
[57:13] property. So I just think this needs to be
looked at some more,
[57:18] and I would appreciate you going back to
the table and thinking about it a little
[57:25] bit more before we go forward with it.
Thank you. Okay, thank you.
[57:30] I'm Stephanie McGurk. I live at 905 Van
Leer. Stephanie McGurk.
[57:35] Stephanie McGurk, 905 Van Leer. Wendell
and I have lived here for 36 years.
[57:42] And as of today, I have a fence because my
neighbors decided to put in a fence real
[57:48] quick before it was no longer legal, I
guess.
[57:52] There haven't been any front yard fences
in our neighborhood until now.
[57:58] What is the problem we're trying to solve?
[58:01] Perhaps the problem we're trying to solve
has to do with what is it going to look
[58:08] When the next neighbor and the next
neighbor decide to fence their front
[58:14] neighbor decide to fence their front
yards,
[58:14] this is a tall fence. It is a solid wood
tall fence.
[58:19] It looks to be heading in that direction.
It just—they just started building it.
[58:25] When we moved here. We saw the beauty of
this open— all the— it's like Matt said,
[58:32] your front yards, your front yards are all
this contiguous place of, of shared,
[58:38] and it's shared community. It's, it's,
it's being neighbors.
[58:43] And it's also just the rest of what do you
see when you,
[58:48] when you look at your space.
[58:50] Backyards are not so much visible,
[58:53] but the front yards are this one piece of
beautiful shared property that bring us
[58:59] together and create value.
[59:02] It's like we came into this beautiful
place and we, we bought this,
[59:07] this house that nobody had made an offer
on.
[59:11] We were really happy that that we were the
first ones who wanted this house,
[59:17] because what we saw was almost like a
forest we're living in.
[59:22] And so you can't have— you can't have that
anymore.
[59:26] You can't have what Van Leer Drive has
been for all these years if these big
[59:32] been for all these years if these big
fences
[59:33] are going to be cutting— cutting
everybody's yards into these little boxes.
[59:39] Thank you.
[59:41] It's just not the same place. And it's not
the beautiful landscape.
[59:46] It's something completely Green Hills-y.
[59:49] You just— you can go live some— you know,
[59:52] you can go live in these kinds of places
if you want front yards that are boxed
[59:58] in. But if you come to Oak Hill, you get a
big kind of piece of forest.
[1:00:04] You get to live in it.
[1:00:05] Yeah.
[1:00:07] And as of today, I lose that. And I guess
it's grandfathered in.
[1:00:14] I guess some grandfathers are younger than
others. But, yeah.
[1:00:21] Okay.
[1:00:22] Thank you.
[1:00:25] Yes. I'm Theresa George. I live at 926 Van
Leer Drive. I agree with Stephanie.
[1:00:31] We have a street that has no front yard
fences.
[1:00:34] We are against— my husband and I are
against front yard fences.
[1:00:39] We feel like if you want a fenced-in
compound that's fenced all the way in,
[1:00:45] go to Northumberland.
[1:00:46] There's lots of places in Nashville and
all around Middle Tennessee that have
[1:00:52] all around Middle Tennessee that have
that.
[1:00:52] But we really wanted front yard fences.
[1:00:55] A lot of our neighbors all over Oak Hill
feel the same way.
[1:01:00] from north in Oak Hill, south,
[1:01:02] and over 200 people said that they wanted
to keep no front yard fences and no side
[1:01:08] yard fences because they want to keep what
we had.
[1:01:12] And you have to consider,
[1:01:14] if you don't have an ordinance that
protects against front yard fences,
[1:01:19] you have to look at not the first house
that does it or the But what is Oak Hill
[1:01:25] going to look like 20 years from now? What
is the 50th fence going to look like?
[1:01:31] Because now it will be, you know, just a
free-for-all.
[1:01:35] And the studies also show that
neighborhood and community is built by
[1:01:41] neighborhood and community is built by
having open
[1:01:41] front yards. And also as a security issue,
for security,
[1:01:46] studies show that it's not done by fences.
[1:01:49] It's done by surveillance cameras and
people have cameras up, you know,
[1:01:54] for their houses and that if you're going
to rob somebody or you're going to
[1:02:00] burglarize a home, that they look at the
surveillance cameras more than the fences.
[1:02:06] So thank you. Thank you.
[1:02:12] All right.
[1:02:12] One more time to make a suggestion. No.
[1:02:18] Let's make sure everybody else has spoken
once. But yes, yes, you may.
[1:02:24] All right. Who's next? I know we haven't
heard from— there's somebody.
[1:02:31] You've heard from me before.
[1:02:33] First of all, let me say my name is Trevor
Howell.
[1:02:38] I live at 4721 Sewanee Road and have since
1981.
[1:02:43] I've loved it, raised a family there.
[1:02:47] I've given my spiel before this board
previously,
[1:02:52] so I won't go on and drone on,
[1:02:55] but I think maybe emphasizing some points
may be proper just because some
[1:03:02] of the people may be new and not heard
some of this.
[1:03:08] But a petition was filed In early July
with over 220 people that were not
[1:03:15] in favor of allowing front yard fences.
[1:03:19] Those 220 people are just as serious as
many of you are that want to leave
[1:03:26] that open. Okay, so I understand that. I
love America. I love freedom.
[1:03:33] But sometimes you have to have a little
regulation to keep things in order.
[1:03:41] And I've been here since 1981— 1985, I'm
sorry, '85.
[1:03:46] Mindy, you'll set me straight. That's a
lot of years.
[1:03:51] But what's a lot of years is this area was
developed 70-some-odd years ago.
[1:03:59] 1970.
[1:04:00] years ago. Winston, you know this.
[1:04:04] Oak Hill didn't just happen.
[1:04:06] It was intentionally plotted out to be the
way it is, folks.
[1:04:11] It just didn't go pop, here we are, isn't
this great, now let's fence it in.
[1:04:17] The people, the developers,
[1:04:20] the founders of Gateway Acres and some
other neighborhoods The neighborhoods that
[1:04:27] all make up the city of Oak Hill had
definite plans about what they wanted
[1:04:33] definite plans about what they wanted
here.
[1:04:33] And when I moved here,
[1:04:35] I was absolutely just mesmerized by the
beauty of the hills of Oak Hill,
[1:04:41] Harpeth Hills. Changed my viewpoint about
where I wanted my family to live,
[1:04:48] and I got a house right on Suwannee Road
and love it to this day.
[1:04:53] I think what's happened is over these
years fences have started to appear more
[1:05:00] rapidly. For those who have lived here a
long time, we know that. We see it. Okay?
[1:05:07] It's not just You know, a chain-link fence
may be one thing you don't notice,
[1:05:13] but we're seeing very, very formidable
type fences.
[1:05:17] And I understand the reasoning behind it,
[1:05:21] but there are different interests that we
need to balance.
[1:05:26] You know, I've said this a million times,
[1:05:29] that the founders of New York City planned
Central Park.
[1:05:34] They could have had skyscrapers all over
Central Park.
[1:05:38] They leave— they left it wide open, folks,
for a reason.
[1:05:43] And these developers did too.
[1:05:46] And people who have purchased their homes
over the years, over decades, me included,
[1:05:53] have relied on that. We like that scheme
of development. We like it.
[1:05:59] Oak Hill can't be You know, it's just not
possible.
[1:06:03] So this board, this commission has the
arduous task of balancing those interests
[1:06:10] arduous task of balancing those interests
and
[1:06:10] doing the best they can with all the
factors that they have to weigh in.
[1:06:16] They hear you. They hear the other side.
They hear me too often on this issue.
[1:06:22] I think that's a good point.
[1:06:25] But I think they're taking the facts as
they have them,
[1:06:30] whether it's a 220-person petition saying
we don't want front yard fences,
[1:06:36] or someone that says, you know, I've got a
dog, I don't want them running around.
[1:06:43] Ever heard of invisible fencing? But
anyway.
[1:06:46] Ever heard of a German Shorthaired
Pointer? Runs right through it.
[1:06:52] No, I don't know how many of those I don't
think there are, but if there were 50,
[1:06:59] maybe it would be relevant. But one, I
don't know. But I see what you're saying.
[1:07:05] But we can't be everything to all people.
[1:07:09] And I just want to commend you all like I
do.
[1:07:13] And this manager right here, I'm going to
commend him for managing all of this.
[1:07:19] And thank you so much for all of your
volunteer hours.
[1:07:24] Thank you.
[1:07:25] Non-paid hours. Thank you so much,
[1:07:28] and I apologize for that guy that
applauded back there.
[1:07:33] He was overzealous. Thank you so much.
[1:07:37] Thank you. All right, who's next?
[1:07:41] We'd love to hear from all of you.
[1:07:45] You came with something on your mind,
[1:07:49] so I'd love to hear from you. We all
would. All right.
[1:07:56] Yes, sir.
[1:07:57] I'm going to just say I'm Bill King. My
wife and I live at 3627 Rainbow Place.
[1:08:05] Bill King, K-I-N-G. And I think I can take
part of the responsibility for this
[1:08:12] thing for one reason. I've been on Rainbow
Place since December 1972.
[1:08:19] We had a neighbor 2 years ago put a fence
up with a building permit that all the
[1:08:27] paperwork was not clear.
[1:08:29] She didn't just put a fence up, she put it
up an easement.
[1:08:35] A shared driveway from the backyard to the
street right next door to our house.
[1:08:42] You go out your driveway, you can't see.
[1:08:46] She backed out her driveway, she couldn't
see.
[1:08:51] The girl on the other side that she
blocked her driveway could not see.
[1:08:58] It was a safety feature. It was a horrible
streetscape. She destroyed our street.
[1:09:05] These gentlemen and the building board
listened to me twice on the fence issue
[1:09:13] listened to me twice on the fence issue
and
[1:09:13] getting that fence down. It just settled
this year.
[1:09:18] It started in December of '24, and it just
settled in court.
[1:09:24] These gentlemen have listened to it. They
have rewritten this whole issue.
[1:09:31] Front yard fences with a 3 or 4-foot limit
are nice.
[1:09:36] When I moved here in '72, there was no
code except you're going to do it this
[1:09:44] code except you're going to do it this
way.
[1:09:44] And he remembers it, and some of these
gentlemen do.
[1:09:49] That new city The manager is gone. There
was nothing written. He said, Mr.
[1:09:56] King, you can have a 6-foot fence in the
back and nothing more than 3 feet in the
[1:10:04] front. No more. He stuck by that. I put 3
fences, 2 with him. It didn't change.
[1:10:12] These gentlemen have rewritten about 3
lines of fencing instructions.
[1:10:18] They deserve a lot of credit and a lot of
time.
[1:10:23] But I just want you to know that's how it
started and that's where all this really
[1:10:31] began because they got into it and they
were not aware of some of the fencing
[1:10:38] changes in Oak Hill and they have really
looked at it.
[1:10:44] So give them the credit that they deserve
at this time and I appreciate it.
[1:10:51] Thank you, sir, for listening to me. Thank
you.
[1:10:56] Thank you, Mr. King. Uh, Steve, that
sounds like a good idea.
[1:10:59] Just says the city manager decides what
the rules are.
[1:11:02] Well, you know, case-by-case basis.
[1:11:04] Yeah, um, if we get all this applause,
then it might be worth it.
[1:11:11] All right, who, who would like to speak
[1:11:18] next? Anybody? I got you.
[1:11:22] All right, everybody has had their say.
[1:11:29] Who wants to say something?
[1:11:33] All right, please come back to the—
[1:11:39] Podium for one, one second round here.
[1:11:45] Again, Miles McDonald. I live at 807
Forest Acres Drive.
[1:11:50] Um, listening to this tonight, uh, there's
a lot of crosscurrents going on,
[1:11:57] and the reason there are is because this
ordinance covers 3 different things.
[1:12:03] To simplify it, it covers It covers front
yards. It covers backyards.
[1:12:09] It covers retaining walls and walls.
[1:12:12] I haven't heard any pushback tonight about
restrictions on front yard fencing.
[1:12:19] There's safety issues with tall fences in
front yards.
[1:12:24] There are community issues with it in
terms of the character of neighborhoods,
[1:12:30] the become fenced-off compounds. There's
just not been much pushback.
[1:12:36] The pushback on this has been about
people's backyards.
[1:12:41] And the pushback primarily is in 2 things:
practicality,
[1:12:46] which comes down to 3 things: keeping
things in, keeping things out,
[1:12:52] obstructing a view, intentionally
obstructing a view. Leave the backyards at
[1:12:58] obstructing a view. Leave the backyards at
6 feet.
[1:12:59] If there's a real problem with galvanized
chain link,
[1:13:03] require that it be vinyl coated and leave
it at that.
[1:13:08] This would be a lot easier for there to be
a consensus in this crowd if the front
[1:13:15] yard fencing requirements or restrictions
were based upon safety and character of
[1:13:22] the neighborhood in terms of the sense of
community,
[1:13:26] not so much that they all look just the
same, to quote Malvina Reynolds,
[1:13:32] and leave it at that. That makes sense to
a lot of folks.
[1:13:37] But these— the low height requirement and
the opacity requirements for backyard
[1:13:44] fencing is— seems to have been the biggest
source of concern.
[1:13:49] So I would just like to leave you with
that thought. Thank you.
[1:13:55] Okay. Thank you. All right.
[1:13:57] Leave the door open here for a few more
minutes or a few seconds maybe I should
[1:14:02] minutes or a few seconds maybe I should
say
[1:14:02] if somebody has got something they would
like to say. Anybody? Yes, ma'am.
[1:14:07] My name is Mary Hearn and I live at 895
Van Ness I'm not going to talk as long as
[1:14:15] Van Ness I'm not going to talk as long as
my
[1:14:15] husband did. I'm so surprised I actually
agree with you. Why? I'm not a criminal.
[1:14:23] As I listened to everybody, it did seem to
me that it's the front yards.
[1:14:29] It's the front yards.
[1:14:31] Backyards, really different circumstances
for most people,
[1:14:37] but Front yards are really where
everything changes in this area.
[1:14:43] And I know that the larger lots, it's
different, but most neighborhoods, I
[1:14:50] different, but most neighborhoods, I
think,
[1:14:50] would not like to have those fences all
around with possible security gates for
[1:14:58] many, many reasons. But so I just wanted
to say that I actually I found myself
[1:15:05] agreeing with you for most of what you
said. Thank you.
[1:15:10] Thank you. All right, anyone else have any
comments?
[1:15:16] I want to say one more thing about
chain-link fences.
[1:15:22] What we're putting in now,
[1:15:25] it comes closer to the house.
[1:15:28] Julie, we can't, we can't hear you. You
need to come up to the microphone.
[1:15:34] We gotta limit this to one time. We're
gonna be here all night.
[1:15:38] We're all right.
[1:15:39] We had a huge big chain-link fence when we
had Border Collies,
[1:15:45] and that fence was for the Border Collies.
[1:15:49] What we're gonna do now is we're gonna put
a chain-link fence that cannot be seen
[1:15:56] from the street. It's gonna to be 6 feet.
[1:16:00] It's going to fence in the bird feeders
and the birdseed and the birdbaths,
[1:16:06] and agile deer can get in there.
[1:16:09] We have all kinds of animals that get in,
but not the dangerous ones.
[1:16:15] But the idea that we have it smaller and
it's going to be dark brown Because we
[1:16:22] it's going to be dark brown Because we
have
[1:16:23] brown trees, we don't have any black
trees.
[1:16:27] We— so we've decided it needs to blend and
it's going to be lovely and we're going
[1:16:34] to try to get done before this is enacted.
[1:16:38] And one more thing is I'm 83, my daughter
is 63, not 53,
[1:16:43] and so we We have really been here a long,
long time. We love it.
[1:16:49] We don't want to leave it.
[1:16:51] And— but we don't want to say, well,
[1:16:54] you just can't have a chain-link fence
because they're tacky.
[1:17:00] Well, ours, you just don't have to come
look at it and it'll be fine.
[1:17:06] All right. Thank you.
[1:17:09] Does anybody have anything else to
[1:17:15] say? Yes, ma'am.
[1:17:18] Are these comments just about fences?
[1:17:20] This is a public hearing for the fences,
yes. You're here for some other reason?
[1:17:25] Yes, but that's okay.
[1:17:28] Okay. If you can wait.
[1:17:29] It's going to be— we're going to have a
discussion now. Okay.
[1:17:33] Does anybody else want to speak about
fences in this public hearing?
[1:17:37] Actually, I do.
[1:17:39] You do? Okay. Come forward.
[1:17:41] My name is Grace Dent, and I live at 1155
Suwannee Road.
[1:17:45] I was not planning to speak about this,
and I'm actually very much a rule
[1:17:50] and I'm actually very much a rule
follower.
[1:17:51] So the fact that we have a white kind of
farm fence in our front yard is sort of
[1:17:57] panicking me. But I did want to speak I've
got 3 young children,
[1:18:02] and when we were looking for somewhere to
live in Nashville,
[1:18:06] there are just not as many neighborhoods
as the town that I grew up in,
[1:18:11] and a lot of cut-through streets and busy
roads,
[1:18:15] and that's just not what we imagined for a
family.
[1:18:18] And we found this house in Oak Hill on
Suwannee Road,
[1:18:22] and the particular lot is very wide and
not very deep,
[1:18:26] and so my kids play in the front yard.
That's the soccer field.
[1:18:31] That's the baseball field.
[1:18:33] And we had a number of really scary safety
issues,
[1:18:37] even with me being out there with them,
[1:18:40] because Suwannee is a little bit more of a
cut-through street,
[1:18:44] especially around pickup time, people
trying to go to Oak Hill School.
[1:18:49] And so we— I emailed about a permit, never
heard back from the of Oak Hill.
[1:18:55] I'm a new homeowner. And so we put the
fence up because of the safety concerns.
[1:19:01] So I guess in the realm of this
conversation,
[1:19:04] I really tried to honor the character of
the neighborhood and do a fence that
[1:19:10] the neighborhood and do a fence that
really
[1:19:10] felt in fitting with that.
[1:19:12] But as a lot of people have talked about
with the different lots,
[1:19:17] and there wasn't much—
[1:19:18] it was a difficult thing to think of any
other way we could put a fence that would
[1:19:25] protect my kids in our yard.
[1:19:27] So just— I just— I guess I just wanted to
speak to—
[1:19:30] I love that Oak Hill has all these
restrictions, and honestly, we've—
[1:19:35] we're hoping to add on to our house and
have really tried to follow all the rules,
[1:19:42] but there are different lots,
[1:19:44] and just how can we keep that in mind and
the safety of our families and kids?
[1:19:49] Thank you.
[1:19:51] And just— that's all I have to say about
that. Thank you.
[1:19:54] Okay. Great. Thank you.
[1:20:01] Okay.
[1:20:03] Anybody else now? Yes, sir.
[1:20:11] I'm still John Patterson.
[1:20:14] Do we ever do a roll call of the room,
like who is for or against,
[1:20:20] that people may not be confident to come
up and speak?
[1:20:25] I'm not aware of doing that. I just want
to see on procedure.
[1:20:28] Thank you for the suggestion.
[1:20:33] Okay.
[1:20:34] Does anybody else want to speak?
[1:20:36] Some of you I see here, I know you've
spoken before, and you're not speaking
[1:20:42] spoken before, and you're not speaking
now,
[1:20:43] but I— I've heard you before, so you— we
keep all those comments in mind.
[1:20:49] But if there's nobody else to speak,
[1:20:52] then I'm going to go ahead and close the
public hearing.
[1:20:56] And we will now go to the next item on the
agenda, which is— um,
[1:21:01] I always lose the agenda.
[1:21:03] It's, uh, it's actually going to be
deliberation on the ordinance that's
[1:21:09] deliberation on the ordinance that's
before us.
[1:21:10] There we go. Um, so This is review and
consideration for adoption on first
[1:21:16] consideration for adoption on first
reading,
[1:21:16] Ordinance 2026-05, an Ordinance of the
City of Oak Hill, Tennessee,
[1:21:22] amending the Municipal Code, Chapter 14,
Zoning and Land Use Control,
[1:21:27] Section 14-123, Walls, Gatehouses, Entry
Monuments and Gates. Second.
[1:21:34] Yes.
[1:21:34] All right. So we are on that now on the
floor.
[1:21:39] We can— I guess we probably ought to have
a motion to move
[1:21:46] this onto the floor so that we can go
ahead and discuss it.
[1:21:52] So is there a motion to approve the
section that I was just
[1:21:58] referring to.
[1:22:00] I'll make them— I'll make a motion to
approve it.
[1:22:04] Okay. And is there a second?
[1:22:06] For purposes of discussion, I'll second.
[1:22:10] Yeah, for purposes of discussion. Okay.
[1:22:13] All right, so it's officially on the, on
the floor now.
[1:22:17] Um, so we've got a motion and a second,
uh,
[1:22:21] and I will ask Vice Mayor Evans I'm going
to ask you, Mr.
[1:22:25] Evans, to speak first if you'd like to.
[1:22:28] I'm persuaded. I don't think there's any
pushback about—
[1:22:34] first of all, we had, you know,
[1:22:38] a 3-foot trying to compromise.
[1:22:41] All of this is a compromise, folks.
[1:22:45] And we talked about 3-foot front yard
fences.
[1:22:50] And we decided that didn't work.
[1:22:54] And what we've got now is no front yard
fences, but only in A, B,
[1:23:01] and C. So that's in quarter-acre,
half-acre lot,
[1:23:05] and 1-acre lots generally.
[1:23:08] And those A, B, and C are generally—
[1:23:11] sometimes, you know, we've got all these
irregularities,
[1:23:14] nonconforming lots throughout the city.
[1:23:17] But that's so that generally you would
have no 1-acre—
[1:23:24] no front yard, no fences in the front yard
in those zones.
[1:23:31] D, E, and F, in so many words, okay, you
can have a fence,
[1:23:38] and I think it's 4 feet.
[1:23:41] 4 feet.
[1:23:42] In the front yard, like a farm fence. It's
spoken in opacity.
[1:23:49] You'll see a lot of these regulations
written by various cities,
[1:23:56] municipalities, and they say opacity
means, for example,
[1:24:02] you can't see through it in simple terms.
[1:24:07] Um, The trouble is coming with the
backyard fences. I hear it.
[1:24:14] I hear the problem with the quarter-acre,
half-acre lots.
[1:24:20] A lot of— I've gotten a lot of emails from
folks on A and B lots saying
[1:24:28] we need to have solid fences,
[1:24:31] and the I didn't see anybody pushing for
fences in the front.
[1:24:38] I think there is a question of whether 6
feet or 5 feet or 4 feet.
[1:24:45] I think we can probably make a compromise
at 5 feet for solid fences in
[1:24:53] the rear. Those are my initial thoughts.
There are—
[1:25:00] There's some technicalities here that
nobody's addressed.
[1:25:04] Well, somebody's addressed them in one of
the emails about, um,
[1:25:09] where you can have a retaining or fill
wall.
[1:25:13] And Marshall, this is more of a question
for you from me on—
[1:25:18] and I'm getting off the subject of front
yard and rear yard fences. There are
[1:25:24] yard and rear yard fences. There are
other—
[1:25:25] Yes.
[1:25:26] And it says in 14-123,
[1:25:28] no retaining wall or fill retaining wall
may be
[1:25:33] constructed or permitted within 10 feet of
any easements.
[1:25:39] Should that be within public or utility
easements?
[1:25:45] I'm sorry, can you direct me again to that
section?
[1:25:50] Oh.
[1:25:51] C, that's the— we're on the retaining
walls. C, Romanette 4. Yeah, Romanette 4.
[1:25:58] And I know we had the problem about the
fella, Mr.
[1:26:02] King's problem with the person just— This
says within 10 feet of any easements.
[1:26:09] That's what, what your ordinance, the
proposed ordinance says,
[1:26:14] within 10 feet of any easements.
[1:26:16] Okay, so that would include— that would
be— yes,
[1:26:20] that would include public or utility
easements.
[1:26:24] So we're not going to be
[1:26:28] interfering with, um,
[1:26:31] with private—
[1:26:33] you don't, you don't want a retaining wall
building on a private easement, right?
[1:26:37] Right.
[1:26:37] And you don't want a public or utility You
don't want a retaining wall built on a
[1:26:44] public or utility easement.
[1:26:46] So I guess now that I've gone through it,
I think that line is okay.
[1:26:51] It's certainly something that you can
decide as commissioners.
[1:26:57] Okay.
[1:26:58] If you're pleased with it.
[1:27:00] On the color of the fence, there was some
concern about that.
[1:27:05] But I think if you look in the fencing, it
says materials fences. It says materials.
[1:27:13] Fences shall be constructed with material
that blends with the natural environment
[1:27:20] and is compatible with associated
structure.
[1:27:24] Examples of such preferred material
include the following: wood, Natural
[1:27:31] include the following: wood, Natural
stone,
[1:27:31] cultured stone, brick, painted metal,
wrought iron,
[1:27:36] wood stained dark brown or painted white.
[1:27:40] Such fence may— fences may include fencing
attached to the interior of the primary
[1:27:47] fence, i.e., the side of the fence
oriented toward the principal portion of
[1:27:54] oriented toward the principal portion of
the lot.
[1:27:54] Now, 2 things about that.
[1:27:57] I think you can see This is not limited to
what your fence has to look like.
[1:28:04] It's wide open as long as it blends in.
[1:28:07] Then there's fences may include wire
fencing attached to the interior.
[1:28:13] What that is for is when you're not on a
solid fence,
[1:28:18] but when you've got a 50% opacity fence,
[1:28:22] you can put a wire there and like people
do To keep dogs and kids inside.
[1:28:28] So I want to explain that. I think that's
good.
[1:28:33] D.
[1:28:35] But the height and location of the fences,
I think,
[1:28:40] is probably the critical thing everybody's
looking at.
[1:28:46] So let's look at Section—
[1:28:49] Romanette, Yes.
[1:28:51] It's D, Romanette 2.
[1:28:53] Fences are not permitted in the front
yards of any lot which is
[1:28:58] in District A, B, or C. So that's quarter—
[1:29:03] generally quarter-acre, half-acre, and
1-acre lot.
[1:29:07] And I think that would cover the folks on
Van Leer.
[1:29:10] I think they are in 1-acre, I believe,
generally.
[1:29:14] Now, we've got a fence located in the rear
yard of a The height of the side lot in
[1:29:19] any section of the fence from the rear
corners of the primary structure to the
[1:29:25] corners of the primary structure to the
side
[1:29:25] lot line, which is in Districts D, E, and
F, shall not exceed 5 feet in height.
[1:29:31] Now, that's where we're getting into the
problems about rear yards.
[1:29:38] Now, those are the D, E, and F. Those are
2 acres and on up.
[1:29:43] Okay.
[1:29:47] And so you can have a 5-foot in height in
D, E, and F.
[1:29:55] Then it says any other fence shall not
exceed 4 feet in height.
[1:29:58] Well, we're going to have to blend that
with—
[1:30:03] I think with folks wanting to have a rear
lot that's solid fence.
[1:30:09] Yes. In A, B, or C?
[1:30:13] I would propose 5 foot in height for a
compromise.
[1:30:16] Then when you get to D, E, and F,
[1:30:19] what do you do there?
[1:30:21] Are we going to have solid rear fences?
[1:30:24] I'm not persuaded to have solid rear
fences in 2
[1:30:29] acres and more.
[1:30:32] I'll, I mean, I'll keep an open mind on
it,
[1:30:35] but that just seems to me to be That's
right.
[1:30:37] That's going to be just too much to have a
solid fence.
[1:30:41] I've got no problem.
[1:30:43] I think we've written it on the— you will
have a D, E, and F,
[1:30:49] one of those larger lots, you could have a
farm fence, 50% opacity.
[1:30:57] Otherwise, it says the fence shall not
exceed 4 feet in height.
[1:31:01] One of these larger lots, there would be a
4-foot max,
[1:31:06] but you can do it 5 feet in height, but
you've got a 50% opacity.
[1:31:12] Now, what about somebody wants to have a
solid fence inside that?
[1:31:17] You know, they— a lot of folks have a
room, a 2-acre, 4-acre,
[1:31:23] have a pool or something like that. Well,
we've got solid fences. Oh.
[1:31:29] 100% passivity are not permitted.
[1:31:31] This is going to have to be limited to D,
E, and F.
[1:31:37] And that says— this would be D, E, and F.
[1:31:41] And I'm suggesting we modify this from
what it's right now.
[1:31:46] But I would suggest for D, E, and F, we
keep it—
[1:31:50] you can have a solid fence. Yes.
[1:31:53] On D, E, and F, provided it—
[1:31:59] note that it, in so many words, it has to
stay within the house.
[1:32:05] So you're not going to have a big solid
fence going out to the
[1:32:11] side.
[1:32:11] Hopefully you'll have room to have your
pool house or whatever you want to have
[1:32:18] pool house or whatever you want to have
the
[1:32:18] solid fence so you can And keep it within
the confines, if you will, of the house.
[1:32:26] Now, if you want to have the pool out to
the side, fine.
[1:32:30] You can put— you've got to have a pool
fence,
[1:32:33] but you can do that without having a solid
fence because, you know,
[1:32:39] I think it's 4 inches is what— and I may
be wrong about this,
[1:32:43] but I think it's 4 inches is what the
maximum that the codes allow so kids can't
[1:32:49] squeeze into it. But in so many words,
that's kind of what I'm, I'm thinking.
[1:32:55] I want to hear what everybody else says.
[1:32:58] So, so many words, no front yard fences in
A, B, and C,
[1:33:03] which we already got, but we're going to
have solid fences.
[1:33:08] Yes.
[1:33:10] Not C.
[1:33:11] Because that's what I— so why do I say A
or B?
[1:33:15] Because I've gotten a lot of— those are
quarter and half-acre lots,
[1:33:20] and that's what people have written me
about saying,
[1:33:25] we want to have A and B solid fences.
[1:33:28] I haven't heard anything— a lot, I mean, I
mean, maybe it's debatable about—
[1:33:35] and I can go one way or the other about
whether in C, Zone C, which is 1 acre,
[1:33:41] whether you could have solid fences all
the way around.
[1:33:46] But keep in mind, you got to remember what
these 2 gentlemen over here said.
[1:33:53] You put a fence up, you're putting another
fence on the other man's property.
[1:33:59] Right. That's the one that hits me.
[1:34:04] And I'm also— another thing I want to say
that I'm concerned about is an old
[1:34:10] adage: you can put a lot more water in the
cake mix, but you can't take it out.
[1:34:17] And maybe the best thing to do is go slow.
[1:34:21] We have all these fences come in, and then
we're going to think, ooh, We got—
[1:34:27] this got too much, and I, I would rather
err in the— call it restrictive,
[1:34:33] but that's the way I sort of feel like on
it.
[1:34:37] Okay, thank you. Uh, Commissioner DeMarco,
[1:34:41] do you have any comments?
[1:34:44] Um, Commissioner Price?
[1:34:46] Well, um, I have lived on Tyne Boulevard—
I'm sorry,
[1:34:52] I've lived on Tyne Boulevard for 43 years,
[1:34:57] and Oak Hill is prettier now than when I
moved out here.
[1:35:03] Having been here for 70 years, I take
offense to that.
[1:35:09] You were gone for a while.
[1:35:12] For a while, but I came back, better for
Worse.
[1:35:18] And so I have great confidence in the
common sense of my neighbors,
[1:35:26] and I have listened to my fellow
commissioners for a long,
[1:35:32] long time as we have hashed and rehashed
this ordinance,
[1:35:39] and I am still not persuaded that That
this is not regulatory
[1:35:46] overreach. I've tried to keep an open
mind.
[1:35:51] I, I do feel like your backyard in
particular,
[1:35:56] for all the reasons that have been stated,
[1:36:01] is appropriate for you to fence in.
[1:36:05] It seems to me that if you want a security
fence,
[1:36:11] 6 feet is not Unreasonable.
[1:36:14] I just feel like this is—
[1:36:17] I hadn't heard until tonight it being
compared to an HOA,
[1:36:23] but it just strikes me as being regulatory
overreach.
[1:36:29] That I'm uncomfortable with.
[1:36:33] And I'll say again, I really have
confidence in the people.
[1:36:39] As some— as one of you spoke and said,
[1:36:44] what really makes Oak Hill is not our
houses and yards so much as it
[1:36:52] is the people. I really agree with that
philosophy.
[1:36:57] Thank you.
[1:37:00] We have loved our neighbors and have
enjoyed trying to be a good neighbor.
[1:37:07] And so that's, that's what I would urge us
to do.
[1:37:11] And I, I don't have a magic pill or magic
answer of how to go forward from this,
[1:37:19] but this seems to me to be an overreach.
Okay.
[1:37:25] Okay, thank you.
[1:37:26] I thought it would be good for people here
at both ends of the spectrum because
[1:37:32] we're not united necessarily over the
thing.
[1:37:35] As Winston said, this has been a
compromise.
[1:37:38] And here, just a point of information—
Can't hear you.
[1:37:42] You got to get closer.
[1:37:43] Sorry, sorry. This has been a compromise
between all of us.
[1:37:48] Probably you heard from the two ends of
the spectrum on the thought.
[1:37:54] And somebody said we had different
versions on the web versus on the—
[1:38:00] what was mailed out.
[1:38:01] Well, what was mailed out, we then had a
public hearing— no, we didn't—
[1:38:07] a public hearing in the Planning
Commission.
[1:38:11] And we got a lot of correspondence. And so
we modified.
[1:38:16] Okay.
[1:38:17] To eliminate allowing fences in the front
yard.
[1:38:21] And what was the other significant
modification that was made after feedback
[1:38:28] modification that was made after feedback
from
[1:38:29] residents? We put the grandfather clause
in.
[1:38:33] Clarified by specifically stating
grandfather clause.
[1:38:38] And so And we put the definition of chain
link in because we had heard of a case in
[1:38:45] South Carolina where there was a very
technical argument in the courtroom about
[1:38:52] technical argument in the courtroom about
what
[1:38:53] is or is not chain link.
[1:38:55] So that's why the long definition of what
chain link is.
[1:38:59] We didn't want to leave any doubt about
that. Yeah.
[1:39:05] And so—
[1:39:05] And then there was one other thing.
[1:39:08] We have a problem with putting up—
[1:39:11] we're putting a prohibition on people
taking mesh and hanging it on fences,
[1:39:17] such as the example on the northwest
corner of Franklin Road and Harding.
[1:39:23] Uh, there was— the Planning Commission did
not like that one, and so we—
[1:39:29] I think we've We included a prohibition on
that.
[1:39:34] If you're going to have a fence, it's
fine.
[1:39:37] Otherwise, the translucent mesh or
whatever it is— And so that— excuse me—
[1:39:44] response we got from the residents,
[1:39:47] it's the first time since I've been here
we proposed something,
[1:39:52] and the overwhelming response was, we want
more regulation.
[1:39:57] We don't want to allow fences in the front
yard, you know, which is—
[1:40:03] previously been allowed.
[1:40:05] So, so we adjusted it to deny fences in
the front yard,
[1:40:10] which were previously allowed in what we
proposed.
[1:40:14] But in general sense, I favor 6-foot
fences in the backyard, certainly in A and
[1:40:21] fences in the backyard, certainly in A and
B,
[1:40:21] because that's a different element.
[1:40:24] And I could be Persuaded to— I'm on the
fence on C.
[1:40:28] Unintended pun.
[1:40:32] I live in C. I have a neighbor who has a
6-foot fence.
[1:40:36] Personally, I don't care for it, but I'm
okay with them doing it.
[1:40:42] You know, I don't resent their right to do
it.
[1:40:46] So anyway, just in summary, I agree I
tried to draft some change,
[1:40:51] but I'm not sure I did a very good job.
[1:40:55] But before the meeting, that would allow
fences in the rear yard 6 foot.
[1:41:01] And, and really, I think they ought to be
allowed not just within the accessory
[1:41:07] setback, but really to the property line
in A and B,
[1:41:12] because I think it would be goofy To have
to pull them into the accessory structure
[1:41:19] setback, which is less space than the full
backyard,
[1:41:23] and then you've got this kind of funky
area between. I agree with you on A and B.
[1:41:30] What we're talking about— I'm thinking
about on the solid fencing in A and B,
[1:41:37] you could put those on the boundary in the
rear. Okay. Yes.
[1:41:42] The question is going to be 6 feet or 5
feet. Yeah.
[1:41:46] Are you talking about solid fences?
[1:41:47] Solid fences, 6 feet.
[1:41:49] In A and B?
[1:41:51] In A and B. A and B. And I'm open on C.
All right.
[1:41:59] What about D, E, and F?
[1:42:00] Can— as it's currently written,
[1:42:04] Or they are allowed to build a fence
within
[1:42:10] the accessory setback, right?
[1:42:14] Um, is that solid or not?
[1:42:18] That's solid.
[1:42:19] Okay, I think that's adequate.
[1:42:21] A private solid fence within the accessory
setback,
[1:42:25] I think that's fine. I think I'm okay with
that.
[1:42:29] But limited to a 5-foot and 50% Opacity
around the rest of the backyard or—
[1:42:37] I would be fine with 6 feet.
[1:42:38] Solid?
[1:42:40] Solid. Around the accessory structure.
[1:42:43] Accessory, right. I'm talking about the
rest of the rear yard.
[1:42:48] It's okay if you don't have a—
[1:42:50] Say again. I thought—
[1:42:52] If we're talking about— I thought—
[1:42:56] are you saying that you also would agree
with a 6-foot fence around the rear yards
[1:43:04] in D, E, and F, um, that is solid and it's
6 feet within—
[1:43:09] on the accessory structure, on the outside
boundaries of the property.
[1:43:16] It doesn't matter. I, I could argue either
way. So I will—
[1:43:24] Okay. Well, then I don't know why you're
[1:43:29] not sure about C. You're leaving them out.
[1:43:34] Yeah. What are your thoughts?
[1:43:36] My thoughts— well, my thoughts on this was
I was very glad when the
[1:43:42] gentleman came forward to reveal to one
and all exactly where this all
[1:43:48] began, however many years ago it was.
[1:43:51] by a privacy solid board fence that went
from the backyard to the front
[1:43:57] street in Zone B— District A. District A.
[1:44:01] Down the middle of the driveway.
[1:44:02] Down the middle of a driveway, a shared
driveway.
[1:44:05] And that's, ladies and gentlemen, what—
you know, you want to know what problem—
[1:44:10] what problem are we trying to solve? That
was— that was it.
[1:44:14] Can I make one quick comment?
[1:44:15] Yes.
[1:44:16] Yeah, one thing I think I've learned from
being on this board is it's not
[1:44:21] possible to predict what people might do
in advance,
[1:44:25] and that's one of those cases.
[1:44:27] Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's, that's
very true.
[1:44:32] And, you know, we, we try very hard to, to
draft our ordinances.
[1:44:37] We've done some, some very difficult Yes.
[1:44:40] We have had some difficult ones in the
last several years involving the bulk
[1:44:47] standards, involving trees,
[1:44:49] and they have required listening to lots
of people with different circumstances.
[1:44:56] And I think that the people who have
pointed out, you know,
[1:45:01] the variability of the yards and the
structures and so forth in Oak Hill,
[1:45:07] even within the districts, makes this very
difficult.
[1:45:12] It's difficult for us to try to come up
with a rule that's going to fit even
[1:45:18] with a rule that's going to fit even
within
[1:45:18] just one district, much less for the whole
city.
[1:45:23] And so it is a daunting task, and we can
do our very best, and then lo and behold,
[1:45:29] a developer or an ingenious homeowner will
come up with a loophole that we didn't
[1:45:36] think about, such as putting the fence
down the middle of a shared driveway to
[1:45:43] down the middle of a shared driveway to
the
[1:45:43] street, and that causes a problem.
[1:45:46] And it looks like we're stupid, which
sometimes we may be. Try not to be.
[1:45:52] My thoughts on this are that I'm not
totally comfortable with where we are.
[1:45:58] We have worked on this and worked on it.
[1:46:02] And Commissioner— Vice Mayor Evans gets
credit for the laboring oar and holding
[1:46:08] credit for the laboring oar and holding
the
[1:46:09] pen on this process and being sent back to
the drawing board to come up with another
[1:46:16] version that changes this or tweaks that.
And I appreciate that very much.
[1:46:22] Thank you.
[1:46:23] And I've said that so many times now.
[1:46:25] Yeah, right, yeah.
[1:46:27] But it is true. And I would really hate
for this to get sent back yet again.
[1:46:33] But I think that there are still some
things, the privacy fence, let me just—
[1:46:39] so there was a gentleman who said, well,
[1:46:42] I was here when the whole room was filled
with people who were against doing any of
[1:46:49] this, and so I'm really surprised when I
read that you're doing it again.
[1:46:54] Well, in order to get the full view that
we get,
[1:46:58] you have to come to every meeting because
we have a different audience every time.
[1:47:04] And sometimes we have the people who came
in and they're all hot about, you know,
[1:47:11] overregulation, and then the next crowd
that will come in will say, my gosh,
[1:47:17] we can't have fences in front yards.
[1:47:19] And so So it's been a back and forth,
[1:47:22] and we've just tried to take it all in and
come up with, you know, what's going to—
[1:47:29] what is going to solve the problem for
most people. And that's really all we can
[1:47:35] most people. And that's really all we can
do.
[1:47:35] The, you know, solid fences— and so here's
why I'm getting to that,
[1:47:40] or going to that, and now I'll come back.
[1:47:44] So many people who have expressed
Concerned about solid fences have compared
[1:47:49] Concerned about solid fences have compared
us to
[1:47:50] Green Hills. Or more typical of my route
to downtown would be through 12 South and
[1:47:56] where you see lots of these privacy fences
that have gone up just like overnight
[1:48:02] that really have created little fortresses
around the properties.
[1:48:08] Properties, that to me is very
unappealing.
[1:48:11] And so— and that's— and we've had a lot of
people in here talking about this who
[1:48:17] have been— thought that that was not a
good way to go,
[1:48:21] that they don't want to look like Green
Hills.
[1:48:25] As lovely as Green Hills is and whatever
part of Green Hills,
[1:48:30] I think someday we're going to have to
have a survey of what do you I don't know
[1:48:36] what you mean when you say I don't want to
look like Greenhills,
[1:48:41] because Greenhills has some— still has
some lovely parts.
[1:48:45] But I think that it's sounding to me like
there are a number of people who want
[1:48:51] solid fences in the back, and I think
particularly I was moved by some emails
[1:48:57] particularly I was moved by some emails
Yes.
[1:48:58] And one of the comments that we received
from people who live in A and B who said,
[1:49:04] you know, we have quarter-acre or
half-acre lots here.
[1:49:08] We don't have a big acre— even a big acre
lot.
[1:49:12] And, you know, we're looking right into
our neighbor's backyard and, you know,
[1:49:18] we really would like to be able to fence
that off.
[1:49:22] Well, that makes— that appeals to me.
[1:49:25] I've lived on Overton Lee Road for the
past 28 years and lived on Oak Valley Lane
[1:49:31] for the previous 13 years.
[1:49:33] So I've been in a 1-acre and then in a
larger hilly lot—
[1:49:37] acre flat lot and a larger hilly lot
situation.
[1:49:41] And both times our solution to that was
to—
[1:49:44] we moved in and there was lots of We had a
honeysuckle bush growing all around the
[1:49:51] yard and we just left it.
[1:49:53] Now, that didn't allow our— keep our
children in very well,
[1:49:57] and so we did have to keep an eye on them.
But there are a lot of solutions.
[1:50:03] And as Commissioner DeMarco said at one of
our meetings, you know,
[1:50:08] you can't tell somebody they can't fence
in their property because they can always
[1:50:15] grow evergreens all the way around it. And
that's true.
[1:50:19] So my view is that the front yard fences
in A, B, and C, I think that's a done
[1:50:25] in A, B, and C, I think that's a done
deal.
[1:50:25] I don't think we've gotten really any
pushback on that.
[1:50:30] I think we did get one email today that
spoke to that,
[1:50:34] but I think that most people Yes.
[1:50:36] I think that most of the people in A, B,
and C have said that,
[1:50:41] and I think that most of the people who
were hot about not being allowed to put
[1:50:47] fences in their front yards live in D, E,
and F, best I could tell.
[1:50:52] And many of them— one of the people who
was so vociferous about it, as I recall,
[1:50:59] and I'm not trying to identify anybody,
[1:51:02] but he has around his entire yard a
wrought iron see-through Yes.
[1:51:07] Fence all the way across his front yard
and everything, but, you know,
[1:51:12] he thought that our proposal was too
restrictive.
[1:51:16] And, you know, maybe he's got other plans
now, but, you know,
[1:51:21] so I think that we've got those people
covered.
[1:51:24] Front yard fences in D, E, and F and no
front yard fences in A, B, and C.
[1:51:30] The backyard You know, it sounds to me
like we've still got some work to do,
[1:51:36] frankly. You know, whether it's a 5-foot
or a 6-foot, whether it's solid, not
[1:51:42] or a 6-foot, whether it's solid, not
solid.
[1:51:42] I got a suggestion.
[1:51:45] Okay. If I interrupt you. Are you trying
to cut me off?
[1:51:49] When you're ready, I got a proposal.
[1:51:53] Okay. I'm sure all these people would be
interested.
[1:51:56] I'm glad to hear that and not me.
[1:51:59] But I do think that, you know,
[1:52:01] this is something that I don't think we're
going to be able to please everybody
[1:52:06] ultimately. And I don't think we're ever
going to please the 4 or 5—
[1:52:11] there's one missing tonight.
[1:52:13] But I think Commissioner DeMarco again
said that well at one of our meetings.
[1:52:18] The reason this is so hard is because we
like parts of it and we don't like parts
[1:52:23] like parts of it and we don't like parts
of
[1:52:24] it, and different ones of us like
different parts and dislike different
[1:52:28] different parts and dislike different
parts.
[1:52:29] So it's— Cut it down to size.
[1:52:31] Yeah, well, yeah, and I think there's
something to be said for that.
[1:52:35] At one point I thought we should just go
back to saying don't put a solid fence
[1:52:41] back to saying don't put a solid fence
from
[1:52:41] front to the street—
[1:52:42] from back to the street down a shared
driveway and leave it at that.
[1:52:50] Yes.
[1:52:50] I think Commissioner Price has a great
point, trusting the wisdom of the
[1:52:56] point, trusting the wisdom of the
neighbors.
[1:52:56] But then, you know, I'm very disturbed by
hearing the story about a neighbor who is
[1:53:03] suddenly, I guess, having heard that we
were working on this,
[1:53:07] has now put up a solid—
[1:53:09] or is putting up a solid wood 6-foot fence
all the way to their front street.
[1:53:15] And that's disturbing.
[1:53:17] That's very disturbing to me that, you
know, I wish that we could all go—
[1:53:22] I'm going to ask Commissioner Price to
quote his James Madison quote here,
[1:53:28] but if all men were angels and women.
[1:53:30] But, you know, we have to have rules and
we have to have these rules and I think
[1:53:36] that's been well said.
[1:53:38] Thank you. Yes.
[1:53:39] One of our neighbors who didn't come
tonight, but he spoke early on about this,
[1:53:45] Brock Baker, said, you know, if you're
arguing against having any rules,
[1:53:51] you've lost that already. That's— the law
is zoning.
[1:53:56] We have zoning and zoning is nothing but
rules. And I think that's right.
[1:54:01] And I think that having rules and some
consistency does improve property values
[1:54:08] overall. I don't want us to overregulate.
[1:54:11] And so I— after all, after saying all
that,
[1:54:15] I'm not sure this is something that we can
quickly fix tonight, frankly.
[1:54:21] But I'm certainly willing to listen to a
proposal.
[1:54:25] I have a disagreement with you.
[1:54:27] I think we need to get this moving,
[1:54:30] and this is the prime example, this lady—
[1:54:33] this man and lady right here. Well, what I
think— let me take that back.
[1:54:38] I would— I'm— I don't want to leave here
without passing the front yard prohibition
[1:54:43] in A, B, and C.
[1:54:44] Well, here's— I've got sort of a— I try to
draw a graph here.
[1:54:51] Front yard, A no, B no, C no, No. D, 50%,
4-foot height.
[1:54:58] E, 50% opacity, 4-foot height. F, 50%,
4-foot height. Rear yard.
[1:55:06] A, solid fence, okay at 5 feet. B, okay
for solid at 5 feet.
[1:55:14] For all C through F, 50% opaque, 5-foot
height.
[1:55:20] Height, but if you want to have a solid
fence,
[1:55:25] you can still have it within the
limitation—
[1:55:31] what we call the accessory setbacks. When
I said— and that's C.
[1:55:44] Solid fences would have to change that.
[1:55:48] Well, Solid fences are— that would— this
would only apply to D, E,
[1:55:54] and F when it says there's— excuse me, C,
D— C through F.
[1:56:00] Where solid fences, 100% opacity,
[1:56:03] are not permitted except for fences which
are within the setbacks applicable to
[1:56:10] accessory structures.
[1:56:13] See Section 14.132 from minimum yard
requirements for accessory structures,
[1:56:20] pool houses, pools, and pool decks.
[1:56:23] In addition, no part of any solid fence
shall be located closer to the side
[1:56:31] property lines than the primary structure
is located to the side property line.
[1:56:38] Solid fences must also comply with all
other 14-123 requirements.
[1:56:45] So you could have on C, D, and F a pool or
some accessory structure.
[1:56:51] You could still have a pool fence without
having a solid fence within the
[1:56:58] accessory setback. This is just—
[1:57:02] Yeah. Just to point out on that,
[1:57:04] we rewrote that so that you don't have to
have a pool or an accessory structure.
[1:57:09] It's just fences within the setbacks
applicable to accessory structures.
[1:57:15] That's a little bit of a nuance, but yeah.
[1:57:17] In other words, you don't have to have
built something there.
[1:57:22] It's just that's the— if you were going to
build something or put a pool in,
[1:57:27] that's where you could have it. And now
you can have a solid fence down those
[1:57:33] you can have a solid fence down those
lines.
[1:57:33] Yes. If it's going to be a solid fence,
but again,
[1:57:37] you can have a pool house,
[1:57:39] a pool without a solid fence.
[1:57:42] Again, it just goes back to there's so
much variability.
[1:57:46] I'm thinking about the gentleman, I don't
know who it was,
[1:57:50] but who lives in C on Glendale Lane and
has a corner lot so that the backyard now
[1:57:56] under Under the way we're defining it for
accessory structures,
[1:58:00] instead of being like this, is now going
to be like that.
[1:58:04] And, you know, if the idea is to keep your
children from visibility, you know,
[1:58:10] you're going to have a— not be able to use
much of your backyard. All right.
[1:58:15] All right.
[1:58:16] Then would you want to have solid as the
[1:58:20] compromise to be okay on C?
[1:58:23] For solid 5 feet.
[1:58:25] For all rear foot fencing.
[1:58:26] For rear foot.
[1:58:27] Rear yard, you mean? Yeah. Did I say rear
foot? I'm thinking of horses.
[1:58:33] Forefoot.
[1:58:35] Okay. We got to do something.
[1:58:41] Yeah, the logistics are kind of difficult
here because we want to do something.
[1:58:46] We agree with parts of it. We don't agree
with parts of it.
[1:58:50] I think the consensus is the backyard
fences and A, B, and possibly C,
[1:58:54] and the height and how to measure where
they are.
[1:58:57] Is it— let me ask the attorney this.
[1:58:59] Yes.
[1:58:59] Is it— what can— between the first and
second reading, you can make some changes,
[1:59:05] but they can't be tremendous changes. All
these changes would be less restrictive.
[1:59:11] Would it be possible to pass this tonight
and then between now and the second
[1:59:17] reading make, make it looser to allow for
the backyard fences and still keep it on
[1:59:22] track? Yeah, my recommendation is if
you're going to make changes,
[1:59:27] make them tonight on first reading. Okay.
[1:59:30] Just my suggestion is you go through this
Romanette 2 and And somebody move—
[1:59:36] somebody who wants to do the word
smithing, move to amend where you want to
[1:59:41] smithing, move to amend where you want to
amend.
[1:59:42] And I don't think it's going to be that
complicated listening to all of you.
[1:59:47] I don't really think— I think number 1,
everybody agrees with that.
[1:59:52] Okay, so you don't touch number 1.
[1:59:54] That says no front yard fences in A, B,
and C,
[1:59:58] and then you can have front yard fences D,
E, and F.
[2:00:01] At not to exceed 4 feet in height.
[2:00:04] I haven't heard anybody— now, somebody
might want to go up in that height for D,
[2:00:10] might want to go up in that height for D,
E,
[2:00:10] and F, but I haven't heard that. So you
could leave 1 alone.
[2:00:14] Then you get to number 2, and it says a
fence in the rear yard of a lot.
[2:00:19] And then where it says which is in
District D,
[2:00:23] just take that out so that you're not
treating A, B,
[2:00:27] and C differently when it comes to the
rear yard.
[2:00:30] And just say a fence located in the rear
yard of a lot shall not exceed,
[2:00:35] and select your height.
[2:00:37] I've heard some people say they're fine
with 5, but if somebody wanted to do 6,
[2:00:43] I've heard a lot of people say 6.
[2:00:45] So that would be the first amendment,
would be to take out which is in Districts
[2:00:51] would be to take out which is in Districts
D,
[2:00:51] E, and F, shall not exceed, and then pick
your height there.
[2:00:55] If you're fine with 5, leave it. If you
want to do 6, put that in there.
[2:01:01] Then, I believe 3 can just, I think, can
just come out. I think. Isn't that right?
[2:01:06] Because haven't you covered everything at
that point?
[2:01:10] What about D and F in the front?
[2:01:14] In the front. Yeah, you're right. Yeah,
that's covered number 1.
[2:01:18] Yeah, so you can just take 3 out.
[2:01:21] But you've got to figure out what your
pleasure is on number 2,
[2:01:25] whether you want 5 or you want to go up to
6, because I've heard different comments.
[2:01:31] And then 4 is the one that will take—
[2:01:34] I'm a little confused on what you're
wanting there,
[2:01:37] and I think you all are not in agreement.
[2:01:40] But I would say that figure out what you
want to do,
[2:01:44] but the way you can word it is solid
fences and then set—
[2:01:48] Instead of are not permitted,
[2:01:50] say are permitted in the rear yard in
Districts such and such,
[2:01:54] and then figure out whether you want it in
the setbacks.
[2:01:58] And then I think you're done with it.
Marshall, I got a graph. Can you look at
[2:02:04] Marshall, I got a graph. Can you look at
this?
[2:02:04] Well, we hadn't done anything with 5.
[2:02:07] I don't think you need to. Opacity of all
other facilities.
[2:02:12] So that's anything you haven't covered in
1 through 4.
[2:02:16] And you may not want to have any opacity
regulations. That's fine too.
[2:02:22] You can just take it out.
[2:02:24] But I haven't heard a lot of— I haven't
heard of consensus or even suggestions,
[2:02:30] except of course from Commissioner Price.
[2:02:33] I just want to be sure. There's the graph
I've got.
[2:02:41] You're out of order, ma'am.
[2:02:45] Ma'am Jones, if you can just hold if you
can just hold
[2:02:52] on for a minute. We we've passed the.
[2:02:58] Public hearing part,
[2:03:01] and we're now trying to figure out what
we're doing up
[2:03:08] here. So thank you. Oh, I don't think
we're—
[2:03:15] we're not worried about chain-link fences
right now.
[2:03:22] Solid. Solid. Solid. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
[2:03:28] Okay. On C.
[2:03:29] All right, now—
[2:03:30] But it'd be 5 feet in height.
[2:03:32] So you're going to get 5-foot height solid
in A, B, and C up to 5 feet in height.
[2:03:39] Okay. And then— And then what about D, E,
and F?
[2:03:43] All right, the front yards, 50% of them.
That's all taken care of. 50%, 5-foot.
[2:03:50] And if a guy wants to have a solid fence
in D, A, E, and F,
[2:03:54] you've got to comply with that one right
there.
[2:03:58] Okay. All right, who's going to put,
[2:04:01] put this out in words so the rest of us
can hear it?
[2:04:06] I am. I'm going to try, Mayor. Mr. Mayor,
let me make a comment, please.
[2:04:12] Um, I'm going to ask everyone to hold
your, uh, conversations to yourself.
[2:04:18] The reason being is that I don't mind you
really talking amongst yourselves,
[2:04:24] but our recorder is in the back of the
room and she is taking down all of the
[2:04:30] changes for us to be able to read this
back.
[2:04:34] So for other— for her to hear that, we
need quiet in the room.
[2:04:39] So if you want to speak, you're fine to do
that, but we ask you to step outside.
[2:04:46] Thank you.
[2:04:46] But while we're in this process,
[2:04:48] our recorder's in the back room because
she has a computer back there and she's
[2:04:53] making these changes as we go. I just want
to make a point to you.
[2:04:57] We're not mad at you or anything.
[2:04:58] We just need you to be quiet so we can— so
she can hear all the nuances. Okay.
[2:05:03] Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[2:05:05] Thank you. All right.
[2:05:09] While y'all are doing that,
[2:05:13] I think I'll just go ahead and make a
couple I
[2:05:20] have a couple of other comments.
[2:05:25] I'm just— I'm surprised other than A and
B,
[2:05:32] which I do agree with about the solid
fences in
[2:05:40] the back. You know, you were talking about
in A,
[2:05:47] B, C, and D only in the solid fence only
in the
[2:05:55] accessory area.
[2:05:57] No, no.
[2:05:59] Is that what— I thought that's what—
[2:06:01] No. saying is—
[2:06:03] hold on, hold on, I'm asking to walk up.
[2:06:07] Um, oh, A, B, and C, solid fences in the
back.
[2:06:11] The entire back or the accessory back?
[2:06:14] Um, certainly the entire back in A and B.
Yes.
[2:06:19] Um, C, I'm willing to discuss. You're
what?
[2:06:23] I couldn't— He's— I'm just answering his
question.
[2:06:27] Yeah, I'm just asking about I think I got
it.
[2:06:30] I'll read it to you and you see what you
think.
[2:06:32] The guy facing the tent? Yeah, I do. All
right.
[2:06:38] All right.
[2:06:38] You all finished?
[2:06:39] Yeah.
[2:06:40] Okay.
[2:06:41] And I think that— Make sure you're
speaking into that mic. Yes, sir, I will.
[2:06:47] All right. This is a subject—
[2:06:50] listening to what especially Commissioner
Evans has Yes.
[2:06:55] And that's what we just kind of started
with, and I've heard other discussion.
[2:07:01] It's a suggestion only trying to coalesce
all that verbiage.
[2:07:06] So we're in Enrollment Act 2, Section D.
Number 1 would stay as is.
[2:07:12] That's fences are not permitted in front
yards in Districts A, B, and C.
[2:07:18] are permitted in front yards in D, E, and
F,
[2:07:22] provided they shall not exceed 4 feet in
height.
[2:07:26] Okay. No change to that?
[2:07:31] No change. And then you would read 5 into
that because the opacity
[2:07:36] of fences shall be consistently not in
excess of 50%.
[2:07:41] So that's going to cover the opacity of
fences in the front yard of
[2:07:46] D, E, and F.
[2:07:47] So you have to add 5?
[2:07:49] It just covers it. Just remember, you
don't add it.
[2:07:53] Just remember it says the opacity of all
other fences shall be consistently
[2:08:00] not in excess of 50%.
[2:08:01] Got it. Okay.
[2:08:03] So that's going to apply. That is going to
apply.
[2:08:06] Okay. All right. Let me check with the
recorder.
[2:08:09] Desiree, are you getting— Are you getting
this,
[2:08:13] or is this impossible?
[2:08:15] Now, that's— sit up here with me.
[2:08:23] That's a good idea.
[2:08:26] As you all can tell,
[2:08:29] our city recorder is Absolutely.
[2:08:35] I'm going to keep talking through this
[2:08:43] and she can look at that.
[2:08:48] Okay.
[2:08:48] So again, 1 stays the same and the opacity
of the front yard fences in D, E,
[2:08:53] and F is going to be covered by 5. Okay.
[2:08:56] So you're going to have 4-foot fences in
the front yard of D, E, and F,
[2:09:00] but they're going to be 50% opacity.
[2:09:03] And you're not going to have fences in the
front yard in A, B, and C.
[2:09:07] Got it.
[2:09:08] 2, now we've moved to the rear yard,
[2:09:11] and all we're going to do is take out
which is in Districts D, E, and F.
[2:09:17] So now it will read, a fence located in
the rear yard—
[2:09:22] and you've got the parenthetical, which
doesn't need to change—
[2:09:27] shall not exceed 5 feet in height. Unless
you want to go to 6. Can we?
[2:09:33] I would go to 6. You would stay at 5? I'd
like to have the compromise at 5.
[2:09:40] I'm 5 for the 10. What's the point of a
privacy fence if it comes to here?
[2:09:46] You're out of order.
[2:09:48] Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm less moved by that,
I suppose,
[2:09:52] than I am about About dogs that I think I
heard the minimum was 6
[2:09:58] feet for that.
[2:09:59] Most, all but the very largest.
[2:10:02] Okay. Yeah. That's a rare dog that can
jump a 5-foot fence.
[2:10:08] Can we each give our thoughts on that?
[2:10:10] On that particular point?
[2:10:11] On that particular point.
[2:10:12] Okay.
[2:10:12] Because that'll solve that sentence.
[2:10:15] Okay. Okay. Go.
[2:10:17] 6 feet.
[2:10:19] For 6 feet?
[2:10:20] Yeah, for 6.
[2:10:20] Okay. All right. What are you— you're for
5?
[2:10:23] I like 5, but I can tell I'm about to be
outvoted.
[2:10:27] He would go for 6.
[2:10:28] 6, right? Okay. And go to 6.
[2:10:32] Oh, what is it going to be?
[2:10:33] Just— I'm going to say 6.
[2:10:36] Okay. Um, these are only rear yard fences
now.
[2:10:39] Yeah, rear yard.
[2:10:40] Yeah, I'm afraid we're building a coffin
to folks in the You get 6 feet in A, B,
[2:10:47] and C in the rear yard, I'm just afraid
that— Okay. Then number 3 would come out.
[2:10:54] Yeah.
[2:10:56] There would just be no need for it.
[2:10:58] That's right.
[2:10:58] So now, 4 becomes number 3, and we're
moving to the backyard with solid fences.
[2:11:06] And I think, based on what I've heard, I
think this will do it.
[2:11:13] Solid Solid fences, 100% opacity, are
permitted— take out not—
[2:11:19] are permitted in the rear yards of
Districts A, B, and C, period.
[2:11:26] Solid fences are permitted in the rear
yards of Districts D, E, and F,
[2:11:33] except That such fences must be within the
setbacks.
[2:11:38] And then it just stays the way it is
applicable to accessory structures.
[2:11:46] Okay. Can you, can you do that again?
[2:11:48] Yeah. So the first sentence is just going
to apply to A, B, and C,
[2:11:53] and it says solid fences,
[2:11:55] 100% opacity are permitted in the rear
yards of Districts A, B, and C.
[2:12:00] And then in the next sentence,
[2:12:03] what we're going to do is say they're
permitted in the rear yards of D, E, and
[2:12:09] permitted in the rear yards of D, E, and
F,
[2:12:09] but they have to be within the accessory
structure setbacks.
[2:12:13] That's going to be the difference.
[2:12:16] You can have a 100% solid privacy, 100%
opacity in A, B, and C up to the lot line,
[2:12:22] and in D, E, and F, you can only— You
can't have that.
[2:12:27] do it within the setbacks applicable to
accessory structures.
[2:12:31] Within D, E, and F?
[2:12:33] In D, E, and F. So you're keeping that
accessory structure for the larger lot.
[2:12:40] You're going to pull that fence in.
[2:12:42] It doesn't mean they can't put a boundary
fence up.
[2:12:46] It just won't be a privacy fence.
[2:12:49] So somebody, you know, in D, E, and F
could have a fence in their yard,
[2:12:54] but they have a pool. Or they don't have
to make it a privacy fence.
[2:13:00] It can be typical pool fence. Right.
[2:13:03] So that's what I've been hearing, and that
goes along with your graph that you made.
[2:13:09] And then I believe the only other change
would be to go past the parenthetical.
[2:13:15] In addition, no part of any solid fence In
Districts D, E,
[2:13:20] and F shall be closer to the side property
lines than the primary structure is
[2:13:26] located at the side property line.
[2:13:29] So it's, again, that bringing that fence
in to the accessory structure boundary is,
[2:13:35] is being done in D, E, and F and not done
in A, B, and C,
[2:13:40] I suppose because of the size of those
small lots.
[2:13:43] Yes.
[2:13:44] I make a motion that we amend the
ordinance,
[2:13:48] the proposed ordinance on first reading,
[2:13:52] to include the changes just described by
Attorney
[2:13:57] Albritton. And shown on the— All right.
[2:14:04] You can make a motion to amend. That was
by Evans. Is there a second?
[2:14:11] I'll second for purposes of discussion and
ask a question.
[2:14:14] Okay, DeMarco seconds.
[2:14:16] Motion to amend, right?
[2:14:18] Motion to amend.
[2:14:19] Let me add, by the way, if y'all think
we're overregulating,
[2:14:26] go to Forest Hills and Belle Meade,
[2:14:30] and there's some other cities and places
like Lookout Mountain,
[2:14:38] Mountain Brook. Yes, he did.
[2:14:41] Okay, so my— I had a question about that,
[2:14:45] and that's where is it that we define the
rear yard?
[2:14:49] Is that— that's in 2, is that correct?
[2:14:53] Uh, no, your, your rear yard is defined in
the ordinance.
[2:14:58] There's a definition of rear yard,
[2:15:01] but There are some conditions because it
says in number 2,
[2:15:06] it says a fence located in the rear yard
of lot,
[2:15:10] including any section of the fence from
the rear corners of the primary structure
[2:15:17] the rear corners of the primary structure
to
[2:15:17] the side lot line. That's where your rear
yard starts.
[2:15:22] A fence located in the rear yard of a lot,
[2:15:25] including any section of the fence from
the rear corners of the primary
[2:15:32] structure. Okay. And then we took care of—
[2:15:35] that may be why we need to leave 3 in,
[2:15:39] because if we have somebody who's got a
fence going from the front corners to
[2:15:45] the side, then that's going to be limited
to the same level as what we had
[2:15:52] decided for the Well, that's what you've
got.
[2:15:56] Yeah, yeah, you may be right.
[2:15:57] If you all don't want to change that,
then—
[2:16:00] so you've got what the mayor's talking
about.
[2:16:03] You're looking at a house and you've got—
you're going to have—
[2:16:06] you're allowing a 6-foot fence in the
rear.
[2:16:09] What are you going to do between the
corners of that house and the side lot
[2:16:13] corners of that house and the side lot
line?
[2:16:14] Do you want that to be 6 feet to match the
rear,
[2:16:16] or do you want that to be 4 feet so it's
lower? I think it's 6 feet. I'd say 4
[2:16:21] lower? I think it's 6 feet. I'd say 4
feet.
[2:16:21] Then you leave number 3 in? Leave number 3
in. Okay.
[2:16:24] Well, that's what— that's again, that was
a compromise.
[2:16:28] That's what we came up with last time in
trying to decide whether to treat,
[2:16:33] you know, how to treat a side yard.
[2:16:35] Is it from the back corners of the house
or the front corners?
[2:16:39] Right.
[2:16:40] Yeah. Okay.
[2:16:43] So you've clarified that somebody will
need to make that—
[2:16:48] if you want to do that, Mr. Evans, you
want to make that motion again?
[2:16:54] I make— let me withdraw my motion and make
a new motion. Okay.
[2:16:59] I make a motion. Now, you've described it,
just to be sure, Marshall.
[2:17:05] Yes, sir. That paragraph 3 is still in
now.
[2:17:08] That's right.
[2:17:09] Okay, so with that understanding,
[2:17:12] I make a motion that we amend at first
reading the fence
[2:17:17] ordinance, which is—
[2:17:23] I don't have the— what's the ordinance
number?
[2:17:26] 2026-5.
[2:17:29] Thank you.
[2:17:30] And then, Mr. DeMarco, do you want to
second that again?
[2:17:33] Yes, I'll I'll second that again.
[2:17:34] Okay, so now we're back on just discussing
whether you want to make those
[2:17:38] amendments.
[2:17:39] Okay, so thank you, we're back on that.
[2:17:43] So Commissioner DeMarco, you had a
question.
[2:17:49] You said, should we move—
[2:17:52] 5 only applies to Item 1 now.
[2:17:55] I'll just make this as a separate— let's
get this one cleared up.
[2:18:00] It applies to every fence except what's in
4. Okay. Then never mind.
[2:18:05] And those— that's the privacy fence in the
rear yard.
[2:18:10] If it's not a solid fence, it can't be
more than 50% opacity.
[2:18:15] And that applies to D, E, and F.
[2:18:20] It applies to all fences.
[2:18:23] Everything.
[2:18:24] Except paragraph 4. where you have solid
fences are permitted in the rear yards of
[2:18:30] A, B, and C, and they're permitted in the
rear yards of D, E, and F,
[2:18:35] but only within the accessory setbacks.
[2:18:38] Okay. Right. So all— okay. So the opacity
then applies.
[2:18:45] Does the— does the— Accessory lines,
[2:18:49] setback lines on the rear,
[2:18:53] are they contiguous with the rear property
line or are
[2:18:59] they some recess from the rear property
line?
[2:19:04] They are recessed. They are recessed,
[2:19:07] but you're only talking about doing this
for D, E, and F.
[2:19:10] A, B, and C, you're letting them go all
the way to the property line,
[2:19:15] I suppose because of the lot are smaller,
and when the lots are bigger,
[2:19:19] you're pulling those privacy fences in.
[2:19:22] So does this say that on A, B, and C,
[2:19:23] that it can go all the way to the rear
property line? It does.
[2:19:27] The first sentence says solid fences are
permitted in the rear yards of Districts
[2:19:31] permitted in the rear yards of Districts
A,
[2:19:31] B, and C.
[2:19:32] Ah.
[2:19:32] Period. It's just very simple.
[2:19:35] Yeah, you're right. I see that. I see
that.
[2:19:38] Good. And then the next sentence says
solid fences are permitted In the rear
[2:19:43] solid fences are permitted In the rear
yards
[2:19:43] of Districts D, E, and F within the
setbacks applicable to accessory
[2:19:48] setbacks applicable to accessory
structures and
[2:19:49] then that parenthetical.
[2:19:50] Mm-hmm.
[2:19:51] And then it says, in addition, no part of
any solid fence in Districts D, E,
[2:19:57] and F shall be close—
[2:19:58] located closer to the side property lines
than the primary structure is located to
[2:20:04] the side property lines.
[2:20:05] So you're preserving all those changes you
made trying to pull things in.
[2:20:10] 4 districts, D, E, and F.
[2:20:12] And then solid fences must also comply
with the other requirements of 14-123.
[2:20:18] So what we've done, we're now before—
after first reading as amended.
[2:20:22] But it hadn't been amended yet.
[2:20:25] Okay, that's— that is on the table.
[2:20:28] Okay, so that's on the table.
[2:20:30] Seconded.
[2:20:30] Let's have a vote. Moved and seconded. And
so let me just Yes.
[2:20:35] I would just say I'm still just not very
comfortable with this except for what
[2:20:41] comfortable with this except for what
we're
[2:20:42] doing for front yard fences in A, B and C.
[2:20:45] You know, it sort of—
[2:20:47] I sort of thought we were beginning with
the idea that we didn't want to have a lot
[2:20:54] of enclosed properties in Oak Hill and now
it looks like we are going all the way to
[2:21:00] enclosing as many properties as we can
with 6-foot fences,
[2:21:05] even if they've got 50% opacity. And
that's not where I thought we were
[2:21:11] that's not where I thought we were
heading.
[2:21:11] I didn't think that's where the tenor of
most people's comments were,
[2:21:17] and I didn't think that we were going to
wind up there.
[2:21:21] And so— and let me be the first to admit
that in spite of the number of hours that
[2:21:28] I've sat through this, Not tonight, but
other nights and tonight.
[2:21:33] I'm not an expert on fences. I'm not an
expert on landscaping.
[2:21:38] And I don't think any of the rest of us
are on this commission.
[2:21:43] And, and, and are you? Maybe you are now.
[2:21:47] Anybody that can try to describe a
Chain-link fence, right?
[2:21:51] Artfully, as he described.
[2:21:54] That's right. Sorry about that.
[2:21:58] But I think, I think that we— please,
please. We can't.
[2:22:05] We can't. Okay. All right. All right.
[2:22:16] Because D is just—
[2:22:17] All right. Well, we haven't gotten to
that, but we will.
[2:22:24] Well, we may not. Anyway,
[2:22:27] I'm just not really thrilled with it.
[2:22:32] What is your concern?
[2:22:33] My concern is that we're going to have a
whole lot of fences around properties in
[2:22:39] Oak Hill and in spite of the fact that,
yes,
[2:22:42] you can see them when When you drive down
Franklin Pike, I mean, yeah,
[2:22:46] and they are lovely and they are all
different. Right. Which would you drive?
[2:22:52] I am not sure. Well, I don't know. I mean,
it depends on the context.
[2:22:57] I know.
[2:22:57] Well, hold on. Let me just finish. Let me
just finish.
[2:23:01] Frankly, you know, the concern I have had,
[2:23:03] and this was the one that the Chairman of
the Planning Commission And that is that,
[2:23:09] you know, we didn't really employ anybody
to help us design this ordinance like we
[2:23:15] did when we did the bulk building
standards. And, you know, he did a lot of
[2:23:20] standards. And, you know, he did a lot of
work.
[2:23:20] We had to pay him, but he was somebody who
could bring in a perspective that knew
[2:23:25] things that I certainly didn't know. I
think that's a good point.
[2:23:30] And I think we do need to have an
ordinance on it because I don't think we
[2:23:35] ordinance on it because I don't think we
want to
[2:23:35] have just willy-nilly people putting up
all different kinds of fences.
[2:23:40] I mean, I have to say that I think that
that would—
[2:23:43] we would not be happy with the outcome.
[2:23:46] As much as we might say we want to have
absolute sovereignty over our own property
[2:23:52] and what we do on it, we wouldn't be happy
with it.
[2:23:55] We wouldn't be happy with the result.
[2:23:58] Yes, sir.
[2:23:59] So we've got to do something. But I'm
just— I'm concerned.
[2:24:04] I'm concerned about the solid board
fences.
[2:24:07] I'm also concerned and I'm conflicted on
that because I hear people talking about
[2:24:13] children and children living in a world
that was not the one that either I or my
[2:24:19] children grew up in. And that's concerning
to me.
[2:24:23] So I feel like we've got to do something.
Whether this does it, I don't know.
[2:24:28] I suppose the only thing that I would say
in favor of doing this beyond the front
[2:24:35] fences in the front yards of A, B, and C
is that we need to do something.
[2:24:40] Let's do this and then let's see how it
goes.
[2:24:43] And And if a lot of people have problems
with it, they've run into problems,
[2:24:49] then they'll come into the city manager or
the codes people and say,
[2:24:54] I got a real problem with this. And then
we'll hear from that.
[2:24:59] And, you know, I guess we'll just have to
deal with it like we have with the bulk
[2:25:05] building standards where we've had to go
back to the well a couple of times to try
[2:25:11] to tighten it up. But this is still very
hard, I think.
[2:25:15] And I just don't want us to,
[2:25:18] out of a sense of expediency or let's just
get this done, you know,
[2:25:23] start making changes.
[2:25:24] Because I think you said you had some
other changes,
[2:25:28] some technical changes that needed to be
made. So we got that out to the staff.
[2:25:34] I think they've been answered.
[2:25:37] People were asking questions about the
language for the easements.
[2:25:42] Marshall and Steve have addressed that
time and time again about the easement and
[2:25:50] what— when you can put a fence on an
easement. You can't do it.
[2:25:57] You can't do it.
[2:25:59] Cannot.
[2:25:59] Well, but can you— can't you do one around
an easement?
[2:26:04] I mean, if you've got a sewer easement
through your front yard,
[2:26:09] you don't have to bisect your yard and
leave a channel there for the sewer
[2:26:15] easement to go through, do you?
[2:26:18] The section I read was on walls. Yeah,
that was on walls.
[2:26:24] Oh, he said it was on easements.
[2:26:26] No, walls. Retaining— that's right. That's
on retaining walls. I got it. I'm sorry.
[2:26:30] I got you. He asked me about retaining
walls earlier.
[2:26:34] Okay.
[2:26:34] And you might not want to put a retaining
wall close to a sewer easement,
[2:26:38] even if you're not on it.
[2:26:39] Yeah, no, no, I can see that.
[2:26:41] I'm sorry, I had you confused.
[2:26:43] I didn't explain— I didn't make that
clear.
[2:26:45] I was talking about retaining walls.
[2:26:48] Now, somebody in all of the emails we've
got, or maybe about—
[2:26:54] I'm concerned about the height of the
retaining walls.
[2:26:58] We've been through this with the Planning
Commission time and time again,
[2:27:05] from everything from the mess on Brentview
where they built it up, you know, we—
[2:27:12] and then the 15-foot retaining wall on
Stonewall Jackson Court, you know,
[2:27:18] and that's just too much.
[2:27:20] Yeah.
[2:27:21] In my opinion, and that's why we've got
that.
[2:27:24] You know, I'm not concerned about
retaining walls.
[2:27:27] I was referring about— I was concerned
about easements.
[2:27:29] You can put a fence over an easement.
[2:27:31] Oh yeah, an underground or an above-ground
easement. Sure. Yeah. Okay.
[2:27:36] All right, we want to make sure about
that.
[2:27:37] Sorry about that. Yeah. Okay.
[2:27:39] But okay, so that's what you were
referring to was the retaining walls,
[2:27:42] and you don't have any other things that
need— that you want to change? No.
[2:27:46] So, Mayor, the alternative to— so Mr.
[2:27:49] Evans has proposed an amendment which has
been seconded by Mr.
[2:27:54] DeMarco, and it has all these things we've
worked on.
[2:27:58] If it's the will of the board not to do
all that,
[2:28:02] but to still cover front yards in A, B,
and C,
[2:28:05] then what you could do is amend this and
just include items 1, 2, and possibly 3,
[2:28:12] regular Yeah. Or even take out the
opacity.
[2:28:15] But that's the alternative play, if you
will.
[2:28:18] The amendment might pass and then it might
get approved.
[2:28:23] I'm not suggesting one way or the other.
[2:28:26] But there's an easy way to still do what
you're talking about, get this passed,
[2:28:32] because there's a lot of good stuff in
here and everybody apparently wants The
[2:28:38] restrictions on A, B, and C in the front
yards,
[2:28:42] and you can get that done tonight even if
you can't reach an agreement on rear
[2:28:48] privacy fences. You can still get this
other stuff done.
[2:28:52] You said we didn't hire a professional.
[2:28:55] However, we started with Forest Hills, and
what Winston did was he,
[2:29:01] in his document that he drafted, he had
footnotes. Is this from Goodlettsville?
[2:29:07] This is— what cities did you draw from?
[2:29:10] I can tell you how I did it because I've
got some history with Forest Hills.
[2:29:16] When I was on the Planning Commission at
Forest Hills, we hired Mr.
[2:29:21] Greg Gamble, I believe it was, and we
redid the zoning in Forest Hills.
[2:29:27] And as I recall, he also got into the
fencing. That's my recollection.
[2:29:32] And so when we came to grips with the fact
we needed to have a fencing ordinance,
[2:29:38] I sat down with Mr. Collie and said,
[2:29:41] let's see if we can't mirror what Forest
Hills has done.
[2:29:46] Because, you know, at that point in time,
[2:29:49] that ordinance is still in effect and
it's—
[2:29:52] they've had no problems with it and it's
gone on for 10 or 15 years. Yes.
[2:29:58] I think, and that's just my recollection,
it's about 2011.
[2:30:02] I may be wrong about that, but it's what I
think it was.
[2:30:07] At any rate, they've done fine with that,
[2:30:10] so I simply took that and used that as a
model.
[2:30:14] And then everybody started raising
questions, so I started looking.
[2:30:19] I saw one in Florida.
[2:30:20] I saw one in Texas.
[2:30:22] I saw one in Texas.
[2:30:23] I looked at one and I've looked at—
[2:30:27] I know I looked at Lookout Mountain. I saw
Signal Mountain. I know I've—
[2:30:31] obviously I've looked at Forest Hills and
Belle Meade.
[2:30:34] I've looked at the city of Gallatin. None
of those were HOAs that you looked at?
[2:30:40] No, none of these were HOAs. No, no.
[2:30:43] And so what I did was pick what, in
whatever my judgment,
[2:30:47] I thought would be palatable to everybody
and in the best interest of the city.
[2:30:54] And then we went to work on it.
[2:30:57] And went to work on it, and then we
revised it,
[2:31:01] and we talked about it and revised it. And
it's probably the 6th or 7th amendment.
[2:31:07] You probably can't even recognize it now.
[2:31:10] Yeah.
[2:31:11] Because everybody quite rightly raised a
lot of questions.
[2:31:15] Because that's the same problem you've
got, just like Dale said a while ago.
[2:31:20] Every time you think you've written it,
that it's tight, it's great,
[2:31:25] somebody or some developer comes up with
some angle or twist and oh gosh,
[2:31:30] here it comes again. But what are you
going to do?
[2:31:33] You can't let the good be the enemy of the
perfect. Did I say that the right way?
[2:31:38] Perfect is the enemy of good. Yeah, the
perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the
[2:31:44] perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the
good.
[2:31:44] That's right. I got that wrong.
[2:31:46] So what you got to do— that's why,
[2:31:48] that's why I'm pushing tonight to go ahead
and get it passed,
[2:31:52] particularly with what these poor folks
are being faced with.
[2:31:56] Commissioner Price, do you have any other
comments to add?
[2:32:00] Thank you.
[2:32:00] Commissioner DeMarco?
[2:32:03] No.
[2:32:03] All right, so we've got a motion So
there's a motion and it's seconded, um,
[2:32:09] with these amendments to what was handed
out this evening, um,
[2:32:14] and was on the website apparently.
[2:32:17] Um, and did we decide on number 2, did we
decide that that was 5 or 6?
[2:32:22] 6. Decided on 6.
[2:32:25] The amendment is 6.
[2:32:26] Is that correct, Madam Recorder? Yes.
[2:32:28] Okay.
[2:32:30] That's part of the motion.
[2:32:31] All right. All right. Any further
discussion from anybody?
[2:32:36] All right, then let's, uh,
[2:32:38] let's go ahead and have a vote on first
reading.
[2:32:42] Uh, all in favor of the motion to amend,
first of all, um, uh,
[2:32:48] please say aye.
[2:32:49] Aye.
[2:32:51] Aye.
[2:32:51] I'm a nay.
[2:32:54] Nay. 3 to 1. All right, now we're— we have
amended the,
[2:32:59] the ordinance and we are now on the
ordinance as amended.
[2:33:04] Correct.
[2:33:05] Um, and we're ready for a vote.
[2:33:08] Somebody has to move adoption now that
it's been amended.
[2:33:12] Somebody has to what?
[2:33:13] Move adoption of the amended motion.
[2:33:15] Oh, it does? It's not automatically—
[2:33:18] It's been amended. Now you're voting on
the—
[2:33:19] On the— oh yeah, okay.
[2:33:21] I make a motion That we approve on first
reading the proposed
[2:33:27] ordinance with the amendment we've
adopted.
[2:33:32] Did I say that correctly? Yes, sir, you
did. All right.
[2:33:38] Is there a second? Second.
[2:33:41] Second by DeMarco. All right. All in favor
on first reading, please say aye.
[2:33:50] Aye.
[2:33:50] Aye. Aye.
[2:33:51] Nay.
[2:33:52] Okay, it's, it's passed on first reading.
So there you go.
[2:33:59] You've watched the sausage being made.
[2:34:04] Partially, not all the way.
[2:34:08] Watched the last 5%.
[2:34:09] Right. Okay, folks.
[2:34:16] Anybody, uh, permit for building? Thank
you. I don't know. Ask her.
[2:34:20] Okay.
[2:34:22] They couldn't speak English to me. I
wondered.
[2:34:26] All right, we need to move on. Thank you
all very much.
[2:34:30] Just give us 5 minutes to get
[2:34:34] our other people back in here.
[2:34:38] Oh, okay, sure.
[2:34:39] Let's take care of the room.
[2:34:41] Did y'all change it so that the fence
running from the back line of the
[2:34:46] houses to the sidelines is only 4 feet
tall?
[2:34:49] No, from the back corners it's 6.
[2:34:52] Yeah, from the front corners it's 4. Okay,
okay.
[2:34:56] All right, you're welcome.
[2:34:58] Mike, this wasn't enough to be here.
[2:35:02] You didn't— you You didn't get enough at
the Planning Commission.
[2:35:08] He's a glutton for punishment. Say that
again.
[2:35:12] I say you had to go through the Planning
Commission with it.
[2:35:18] Now you're back here watching the— Well,
[2:35:21] I've got to report back and make sure
y'all did what we said. We did it right.
[2:35:29] Well, I would be doing that. That's a good
idea. I would be Thank you, Mr.
[2:35:36] Price. I'm Michael Berry, Lake Montbrello.
Yes, Michael.
[2:35:41] No, one thing I'm surprised at,
[2:35:44] there has not been more discussion about
how the Radnor Lake overload affects
[2:35:51] all the things that we've talked about.
I'm just surprised.
[2:35:57] You're surprised that it does affect?
[2:35:59] I'm surprised there hasn't been more
discussion about smart power.
[2:36:05] How do you mean? Should affect all of this
about fencing,
[2:36:10] because that's a wildlife preserve and
it's our obligation as the city to
[2:36:17] preserve that wildlife.
[2:36:21] Well, I mean, yes, you just reminded me of
a point that somebody did make at a
[2:36:27] previous meeting, and that is,
[2:36:29] I guess it was the people talking about
the front yard fences,
[2:36:33] and they wanted to leave them open so
wildlife could get through.
[2:36:37] But, you know, I don't back directly up to
Radnor,
[2:36:41] but I have one row of lots behind me that
does back up to it.
[2:36:45] And we We get lots of wildlife, but I'd
hate to try to fence them out.
[2:36:50] Good Lord, no telling what would happen.
[2:36:53] What happens, the worst thing is, I think
you've covered it here,
[2:36:56] but when you have the spikes on the top, a
lot of deer get impaled.
[2:37:00] Oh.
[2:37:02] And wildlife had to, of course, they'll
say, come out and kill them.
[2:37:07] Policemen all the time shoot them in the
head, pull them off the fence.
[2:37:12] It's terrible. It's really interesting.
[2:37:14] People think like, I'm going to get a
6-yard fence,
[2:37:18] a 6-foot fence to keep coyotes out.
[2:37:21] Just go to YouTube and look at— yeah, can
a coyote jump a 6-foot?
[2:37:25] And they've got them going up on people's
roofs.
[2:37:29] They can just like get up on the roof. And
a Belgian Malinois can do that too.
[2:37:34] They can climb a fence. Right. 6-foot
fence? Done. They can go right over it.
[2:37:40] They just climb right over it.
[2:37:42] I have, I have on Oak Hill, I was taking
my daughter to, my granddaughter to
[2:37:47] my daughter to, my granddaughter to
school,
[2:37:48] and I looked over, and this is Oak Hill, I
looked up, there's a dog on the roof.
[2:37:53] Yeah, I don't know how the dog got up
there, but he was up there on the roof.
[2:37:59] It wasn't a lab. He said climb ladders.
Find ladders to get up there.
[2:38:04] Good evening, fellas. You did a good job.
Thank you, Mike.
[2:38:08] I think we finally wrapped up the first
step.
[2:38:13] Let's work on the rest of it.
[2:38:15] Oh, yes.
[2:38:42] Well, thank you for putting it to words.
[2:38:46] You did a very good job of that.
[2:38:49] Made it simple.
[2:38:50] I think we're moving on to— Yeah, we would
have—
[2:38:53] that's the kind of thing we would have
debated an hour and a half if he had to
[2:38:59] debated an hour and a half if he had to
just
[2:38:59] sit. Yeah, it works. If anybody had any
public comments, I'm going to screw him.
[2:39:05] She's going to stay and tell you about it.
I understand.
[2:39:10] It's not perfect, but it restricts what
people can do more than what we have.
[2:39:15] Oh God. And we can, you know, I just see
those solid things.
[2:39:20] Everybody's not going to do them.
[2:39:22] Well, they're doing them because they have
small lots, and we're allowing them.
[2:39:28] Lots of that size. In the back, we allow
them for small lots,
[2:39:33] and we're allowing them for— We disagree.
It means we had a good compromise.
[2:39:39] Yeah, you know. Yeah. You got close. I
mean, we had plenty of conversation.
[2:39:44] So that all you see is just— That's all
you can do.
[2:39:48] Yeah, I'm gonna put a 6-foot privacy
fence. Can't get everybody in. That's
[2:39:54] fence. Can't get everybody in. That's
right.
[2:39:54] Although we've done it now to the property
line,
[2:39:58] so that's going to make it next to
impossible. I'm not unhappy.
[2:40:03] Put trees unless you put them in your
neighbor's yard.
[2:40:07] No, no, no, I'm just talking about You
don't see the back, so somebody's back.
[2:40:13] I will sleep tonight. Right in the street.
But you can see the front part.
[2:40:18] That guy covered that one last day. God, I
had a motion yesterday.
[2:40:26] Yeah. And Don Capwell and Albert moving.
[2:40:30] We thought we had a snowball
[2:40:37] chance. It was a motion to
[2:40:43] dismiss, failure to prosecute.
[2:40:49] We filed that. It's been 7 years
[2:40:57] since the events in question,
[2:41:03] 6 years, 6 and a half years since
[2:41:11] the case was filed. No activity in
[2:41:19] the case. That was back in the
[2:41:26] '90s. Who's the judge?
[2:41:31] Louis Oliver, of the Oliver family.
[2:41:33] But, um, Chancellor, there was the time
though that our 2,
[2:41:37] maybe 3-year-old daughter went out through
the honeysuckle bushes and followed the
[2:41:43] dog on the other side of the honeysuckle
bushes.
[2:41:47] And my wife called my office and my
secretary came into my office.
[2:41:51] I'm coming over to your house. I'm pretty
sure it's your wife.
[2:41:55] I can't understand a thing she's saying.
And my wife was starting in September.
[2:42:01] Why are you going to come to his house? I
won't be here. I won't be here.
[2:42:06] He's going to come make me sit back there
with Tommy. Well, you know what?
[2:42:10] He's going to come make me sit back there
with Tommy.
[2:42:13] I'm going to make him come to every
meeting. Make him come back? Yeah, yeah.
[2:42:18] Wait, wait, what kind of a Public servant
work.
[2:42:21] You're supposed to be a participating
citizen.
[2:42:25] You've obviously seen the movie The Man
Who Knew Too Much with
[2:42:30] Jimmy Stewart.
[2:42:32] Yeah, you know, they're in Morocco and
who's their son?
[2:42:38] Oh yeah.
[2:42:40] Okay, I move we adjourn.
[2:42:43] No, no, no, it just— well, the fact
though,
[2:42:47] we reached that seriously. Thank you. You
too.
[2:42:53] Let's do it.
[2:42:56] Let's move on.
[2:43:01] Ezra, you ready?
[2:43:07] Okay.
[2:43:11] Okay, we are now back on the record.
[2:43:15] Back on the record. Julie, Mike, can
y'all—
[2:43:19] number 5, number 5 on the agenda,
[2:43:22] and that is the approval of the minutes.
[2:43:26] Move approval. I move approval.
[2:43:29] Second.
[2:43:30] Okay, anybody have any corrections? Oh,
have these been changed? Yeah.
[2:43:36] I'm sorry, I couldn't hear.
[2:43:39] We got— we got— we're on the minutes.
[2:43:41] Yes, I couldn't hear the first and second.
I moved approval. Oh, I'm sorry.
[2:43:46] And Winston Evans seconded.
[2:43:48] Thank you. But now my question— She has—
she's made— you've made corrections,
[2:43:55] haven't you, Desiree?
[2:43:57] There were minor corrections that are in
front of you since it was sent out.
[2:44:04] I have a couple of Picky typos.
[2:44:07] Under approval of the minutes, the first
sentence, it says minutes of May 26th,
[2:44:14] 2026. There should be a space after the
comma in the date.
[2:44:19] Yeah, there's a space missing there. May
20th, the date, May 26th.
[2:44:25] And then We need 2 periods, one after new
business.
[2:44:30] Uh, the very last part of that where it
says the motion carried 4-0 should have a
[2:44:38] period behind it.
[2:44:39] Yeah.
[2:44:42] And then also approved this day, the very
last thing approved blank,
[2:44:46] approved this blank day of blank 2026
should have a period behind it,
[2:44:51] I think.
[2:44:51] All right.
[2:44:53] Those are such typographical things, I
don't think you need to approve that.
[2:44:58] Yeah, the first period.
[2:45:00] Yeah, where was that first period?
[2:45:02] It's, uh, new business,
[2:45:04] the last sentence in number 9, new
business.
[2:45:08] Motion carried 4-0. Thank you.
[2:45:11] Oh, okay. And then the second period you
were talking about was at the very end?
[2:45:15] Yes.
[2:45:15] Yeah. Okay.
[2:45:15] Yes, it is. Okay. All right.
[2:45:17] And When you say minor changes, I mean,
were there,
[2:45:21] were there wording changes that were made
between the first and second version
[2:45:26] here?
[2:45:27] Um, I forgot to add a vote.
[2:45:30] Oh, a vote on the agenda
[2:45:34] portion.
[2:45:35] Oh wait, there's a major Problem here.
[2:45:39] D under 12, unless Ann changed
professions,
[2:45:45] I don't think she was recognized by the
Municipal
[2:45:51] Attorneys Association.
[2:45:54] So we need to make a change there.
[2:45:58] Tennessee Medical Association.
[2:46:02] Tennessee Medical Association.
[2:46:04] Okay, thank you.
[2:46:06] Close enough. That's close enough.
[2:46:09] She's deserving of other accolades.
[2:46:12] Yeah, we could give her that one too.
[2:46:15] Yeah, right. Probably more deserving than
most attorneys.
[2:46:20] All right. Uh, okay, I'm glad I saw that.
[2:46:24] Okay, any— anybody else want to just spot
scan it and see if
[2:46:29] you find something?
[2:46:38] The other change was on the very first
paragraph. It said—
[2:46:42] I believe it said originally May. The very
first paragraph of the preamble?
[2:46:50] Yes. And the original minutes that were
sent out,
[2:46:55] they were changed to met on the date
above.
[2:46:59] Oh, okay.
[2:47:01] All right, all right, that's good.
[2:47:05] So we've got a motion by Price and a
second by Evans.
[2:47:10] And all in favor, all in favor, please say
aye.
[2:47:15] Aye.
[2:47:16] Any opposed? Okay, 4-0. All right. What's
that?
[2:47:22] What's that? Ah, yes.
[2:47:25] We're now ready for the financial report.
[2:47:30] And if I could just ask you in advance, at
some point,
[2:47:37] will you please explain what's on the
yellow sheets that
[2:47:44] are not on the various lines?
[2:47:47] The pages after the yellow sheets where
you've got—
[2:47:54] what do you call this— below the line?
[2:47:59] Yep. Okay. A little hard to read.
[2:48:01] Yes, I actually, for myself,
[2:48:04] put them on a separate page because I was
looking at them today.
[2:48:09] I went, I'm getting older, can't read
those numbers. But yes, definitely.
[2:48:16] Okay, Deborah Dutcher, city accountant.
[2:48:19] And we have finished FY26 financials
pending the auditors and their
[2:48:25] pending the auditors and their
adjustments.
[2:48:26] So I was told that normally the board puts
any money they transfer from savings into
[2:48:33] a revenue line item as a transfer from
other sources.
[2:48:38] But technically— and that would be the $4
million—
[2:48:42] but technically that's not revenue. So it
doesn't count towards revenue.
[2:48:48] If it did, then our actuals, the revenue
would be $4,839,923 plus the $4 million,
[2:48:55] and that would be $8,839,923. I can't
hear.
[2:48:59] I'm just going to stand here where you're
going. Oh, okay, sure.
[2:49:04] And the total expenditures are $7.
[2:49:07] $1.4 million, and that if you did it with
the $4 million,
[2:49:12] it would be a positive $1.4 million.
[2:49:15] But since that's not GAAP, we're
discarding that.
[2:49:19] Okay.
[2:49:20] So our revenues were $4,839,923.
[2:49:26] Our expenses were $7,392,423,
[2:49:30] which leads us with a net income of a
[2:49:36] loss of $2.5 million.
[2:49:40] Okay, you're— that's on the next page.
Sorry.
[2:49:44] What page are you on? The yellow sheets?
[2:49:48] I think so, yeah.
[2:49:50] I'm trying to find out. You've got a cheat
sheet here. Yes, I have.
[2:49:57] So I'm trying to find it on this page. Oh,
okay.
[2:50:02] So the $1.4 million is on the first Or on
the yellow sheets.
[2:50:09] On the yellow sheets. And yeah,
$1.44749951 net income. Right.
[2:50:15] But if you look on the yellow sheets in
the actuals,
[2:50:21] our actual revenue was $4.839922.
[2:50:24] If you go over to the expenditures page,
[2:50:28] our total expenses were $7,394.23.
[2:50:32] And that leaves us with a loss of
$2,552,500.
[2:50:36] Steve, the check that I just signed this
afternoon, that was for the,
[2:50:44] for, you know, the cleanup. Is that
Included in that $7,390,000?
[2:50:50] It absolutely is. That was our— that was
the, uh,
[2:50:55] the TDEC ARPA account for the, uh,
[2:50:59] the last payout for the Granny White and
Tyne project.
[2:51:05] Okay.
[2:51:05] So yeah, that, that's, that's, that's, uh,
in the, in the TDEC account. Okay.
[2:51:12] And all that wasn't— that wasn't the
clean— the, the ice storm. Okay, thank
[2:51:18] clean— the, the ice storm. Okay, thank
you.
[2:51:18] But all the expenses for the storm have
been posted.
[2:51:23] So we actually ended up spending
$3,512,777 for the storm,
[2:51:28] and our budget was $4,039,000. So we came
in under our budget by $587,000.
[2:51:34] Wait, I'm sorry, I thought—
[2:51:38] I have $3.45 million.
[2:51:40] For the expenditure of the storm cleanup?
[2:51:46] Oh yes, yes, the budget was $4,039,000.
[2:51:51] Yes, the final cost was $3,451,277.
[2:51:55] Yeah, so we came in at $587,723 under what
we budgeted for the storm
[2:52:02] because at one point we were thinking
we're going to be spending
[2:52:10] about $4 million. Right. Okay. So, okay.
[2:52:14] So in that negative 2.552,500,
[2:52:18] we are going to be getting some
reimbursement from FEMA.
[2:52:24] So if you looked at on my cheat sheet,
[2:52:29] so if you take our net loss of 2.552,500.
[2:52:33] $1,500,000, and we're estimating to get
$3,019,867 in FEMA
[2:52:40] reimbursements. Now, that's calculated by
our total cost.
[2:52:47] We're expected to receive 75%. That's what
our estimate is.
[2:52:53] And we're also getting another 12.5% for
administrative fees from
[2:53:01] TEMA. So our total recovery would be
$3,019,867.
[2:53:06] That's FEMA and FEMA. FEMA and FEMA. Yep.
[2:53:11] Okay, I knew this was going to be
difficult.
[2:53:14] Um, can we— all right,
[2:53:16] I assume this is the way that when we wind
up having a $1.5 million deficit,
[2:53:22] that's the way it's going to be on the
audited.
[2:53:26] It's not the way it's going to be on the
audit.
[2:53:30] We'll be required to record a receivable.
[2:53:33] Okay, this receivable will be on the
government-wide section.
[2:53:39] So there's 2, 2 account financial reports
on the audit.
[2:53:44] One is based on GAAP with its—
[2:53:47] just we do modified accrual accounting So
on that side,
[2:53:52] it will say that we have a negative $2.5
million,
[2:53:57] but we budgeted to have a negative $4
million.
[2:54:01] So, but with the— in government-wide,
we're going to accrue that,
[2:54:08] that recovery we're expecting from FEMA.
Why wouldn't it be on the general fund?
[2:54:15] Because that's where the expense was.
[2:54:19] It will be in the government-wide general
funds,
[2:54:23] but because it's not receivable within 60
days,
[2:54:28] so we're not going to get it by August
30th, so we—
[2:54:33] it's going to be a government-wide
receivable. So, oh yeah, $3 million.
[2:54:39] And so if you look at it, our total costs
were $3,451,277.
[2:54:45] Recovery, we're expecting $3,019,867. So
75%, right? 75% plus the 12.5%, yes.
[2:54:52] So we would only have spent from our money
after FEMA's reimbursement $431,410.
[2:55:00] All right, wait, wait, wait, tell me that
part again.
[2:55:04] So our total costs were $3. $1.4 million.
We're expecting $3 million from FEMA.
[2:55:12] So what we're out of pocket for the entire
storm cleanup is $431,410.
[2:55:18] Is that just FEMA, or is that FEMA plus
FEMA on the reimbursement?
[2:55:25] Um, that's FEMA plus FEMA. So we've got
$258,458 for FEMA recovery, so that's 75%.
[2:55:32] Okay, I see you've got— that includes
TEMA.
[2:55:36] Right, and we're getting $431— So that's
FEMA and TEMA reimbursement? Yes, yes.
[2:55:44] All right, this is my ultimate question.
[2:55:48] And this to me is where numbers start
getting really slippery.
[2:55:54] And I'm just trying— and I can't keep hold
of it.
[2:55:59] What I'd like to know is we moved $4
million into our general budget,
[2:56:06] moved into the budget, okay? And of that
we spent how much? $3.451 million?
[2:56:14] Correct.
[2:56:14] Okay, so $4 million minus that amount is
what we didn't spend that we put in the
[2:56:21] general fund. Into the budget,
[2:56:24] and somehow or another I'd like to see how
that goes back into the fund out of the—
[2:56:31] out of the— out of our budget,
[2:56:33] not as any kind of an excess revenue
because it's not,
[2:56:38] but that it goes back into our fund
balance that we had before.
[2:56:43] Okay, you see what I'm saying?
[2:56:46] Yep. In the financial statements, it'll be
on the government-wide statement.
[2:56:52] Then next year when we receive the money,
it will come in as a FEMA reimbursement,
[2:56:59] so it will hit our bank accounts at that
time.
[2:57:03] And the general fund will also show up on
the general fund? Yes. Yes.
[2:57:09] Because you can put it as—
[2:57:11] I'm going to probably put it in FEMA
reimbursement as a revenue,
[2:57:16] but you could also put it as a FEMA
reimbursement against the expense.
[2:57:22] But either way, it's going to increase our
revenue by being reimbursed for those
[2:57:29] funds from FEMA. What you're asking is—
let me weigh in here.
[2:57:34] And I don't want to get— provide a
different message.
[2:57:38] But you're looking at the figures the way
I look Probably so.
[2:57:43] Okay, because I'm saying, okay,
[2:57:46] we have so much revenue plus that $4
million we set aside out of the— out of
[2:57:52] million we set aside out of the— out of
the—
[2:57:52] out of our reserves.
[2:57:54] So if you add those together,
[2:57:56] you'll see that number right there on the
revenue page of the yellow sheet.
[2:58:02] Right there on the yellow revenue sheet,
[2:58:06] if you go right down below the line and if
you look real close, it's It says actual.
[2:58:13] So your revenue for the year was
$4,839,000.
[2:58:16] Then we use that appropriation of $4
million,
[2:58:20] that added total funds budgeted to spend
$8.8 million.
[2:58:25] Okay, our total expenditures, $7.3
million,
[2:58:28] which included everything we spent money
on, including the debris pickup,
[2:58:34] the TDEC culverts. The other ARPA money
that we had in the bank or in savings or
[2:58:41] that we had in the bank or in savings or
in
[2:58:41] reserves, what— that's all included in our
expenditures at $7.3 million.
[2:58:47] So the money we did not spend, that $1.447
million, is still in the LGIP account.
[2:58:54] It never came out of it because we didn't
have to to pull it out.
[2:58:59] So there's where you're, you're saying the
money's going back in.
[2:59:04] Well, actually, that $1.447 never came
out. It's still in reserves.
[2:59:10] Okay, okay. But see, I can't reconcile— I
mean, that's helpful,
[2:59:17] but that doesn't help me reconcile $1.447
with $5 $130-something
[2:59:25] thousand.
[2:59:26] What she's saying, she's putting that in a
bucket by
[2:59:32] itself. We put $4 million aside for the
cleanup.
[2:59:38] Our spend was $3.451 million.
[2:59:42] So for that bucket, we had $587,000
surplus.
[2:59:48] Right.
[2:59:49] Okay, and that is included,
[2:59:51] that's included in that $1.4 that's still
in LGIP that's not spent.
[2:59:57] I mean, we— because it was, uh, what they
call funding sources other than revenue,
[3:00:03] it doesn't show up on this shallow sheet
because it's,
[3:00:08] it's in an amendment And it's coming out
of revenues and it's funding sources.
[3:00:14] And if you'll remember on our budget
document, we had all of our expenses, all
[3:00:21] document, we had all of our expenses, all
of,
[3:00:21] all of our expenditure.
[3:00:23] I mean, all of our revenue, all of our,
all of our, um, all of our revenue,
[3:00:29] all of our expenses. Then we had
sanitation.
[3:00:33] And right below that, it said other
sources for transfer.
[3:00:38] It had our transfers, then had other
sources.
[3:00:41] So when that is reconciled by the auditors
and by the comptroller's office,
[3:00:48] they have our budget amendments that we
pull that money out of other financial
[3:00:54] sources that's not revenue. So they will
take into account that $4 million.
[3:01:00] Did I say that correctly, Deborah?
[3:01:03] Yes. Almost.
[3:01:06] The auditor or the comptroller's office
knows that we just took $4 million
[3:01:13] of savings to offset the cost for the
storm cleanup.
[3:01:18] So our budget technically said, okay,
we're going to spend $4 million—
[3:01:24] our budget was we're going to spend $4
million over what we budgeted,
[3:01:31] and we ended up spending Right.
[3:01:34] Right. So here's what— so here's what my
simple mind would like to see is we've
[3:01:40] simple mind would like to see is we've
got—
[3:01:40] we still have $4 million over here and
it's red money.
[3:01:44] And over here we've got green money and
that's what our budget was, okay?
[3:01:50] And so we've spent $3.5 million out of the
red money and that left us with $500,000.
[3:01:58] That's budget versus actual. Okay.
[3:02:02] And then on the other side, on the green
money,
[3:02:06] we still were working with a budget of—
[3:02:10] with budgeted revenue of $4,839,922.
That's actual.
[3:02:14] So we had revenue, actual revenue without
that $4 million,
[3:02:20] of $4,839,922.
[3:02:25] Right, our actual budget for revenue is
$4,084,232.
[3:02:29] But the actual revenue—
[3:02:31] But the actual revenue is $4.8 million.
Yes.
[3:02:35] By a considerable amount. Mm-hmm. Yeah,
that's nice.
[3:02:39] Okay, so that's what this is— this is,
believe me,
[3:02:44] this is helping me to look at it this way.
[3:02:47] And so then of that $4,839,000 Of that we
spent what?
[3:02:51] $7,392,420.
[3:02:54] No, see, I'm— we didn't, we didn't spend
that $3.4 million out of,
[3:02:58] out of what I'm talking about. That's over
here in the red money.
[3:03:03] In the green money, we only received
revenue of $4 million, $4.839 million,
[3:03:08] and we spent of that what? That's what I'm
getting at.
[3:03:11] So forget the expenditures I know this is
probably making your mind go crazy,
[3:03:16] but the other is making mine go crazy.
[3:03:19] So if we took our revenue, we subtracted
our expenditures,
[3:03:25] and we added back in the storm cleanup—
[3:03:29] so we're looking at it as the storm never
happened.
[3:03:34] Yes, if, if that happened, we would have
$898,776 as net income.
[3:03:41] I'm sorry, what? What? Oh, be useful.
[3:03:44] And that money came from the fact that we
assumed there was going to be $1
[3:03:52] million in storm cleanup,
[3:03:54] so we cut back some capital expenditures
to cover that. Okay.
[3:04:01] And then obviously Obviously the storm
kept going up and up as far as the costs.
[3:04:09] Now, a bit of a wrinkle.
[3:04:11] We, we saved $63,000 in the monthly
pickup, 3 months of $21,000.
[3:04:18] Not a big deal, but— But still $60,000.
Yeah.
[3:04:22] Yeah, okay, I see that, but that seems
like a little bit of a Extra wrinkle.
[3:04:28] Um, so I'm just trying to see— yeah, we
did save that money,
[3:04:32] I guess you could look at it that way.
[3:04:35] But then by the same token, we weren't
paying that money to Jonathan either.
[3:04:40] I mean, we weren't— it wasn't like we
saved it because we were doing it through
[3:04:46] saved it because we were doing it through
the
[3:04:46] storm cleanup, I guess.
[3:04:48] Which is what we did. We moved it.
[3:04:50] Yeah. Well, anyway, don't let me get off
subject here.
[3:04:56] So I'm just trying to So we had— so we've
got $898,000 there,
[3:05:02] and then we've got $540,000-something from
the, uh, the $4,039,000.
[3:05:08] $540,000-something.
[3:05:10] So that would probably add up to the
$1,447,500.
[3:05:13] To what?
[3:05:16] The $1,447,500. When you add the $4
million you got from your kitty and you
[3:05:23] subtract your total expenditures, you're
actually ahead $1.447 million.
[3:05:30] All right.
[3:05:31] And then now, is that one— oh,
[3:05:32] and so that's the net income including the
$4 million? Yeah. Okay.
[3:05:36] Yes. So I was going to ask, what do you
report to the comptroller?
[3:05:40] Do you say we made $1.447 million? No. Do
you report the actual numbers?
[3:05:45] We lost, uh, In the government-wide— a
government fund, it will be a 2.5 loss,
[3:05:50] right? But it won't count against you
because you'll see what— Oh, exactly.
[3:05:55] Every— every— we're actually probably
doing pretty well because a lot of cities
[3:06:00] don't have them take that into account. Of
course, when they reconcile that, right?
[3:06:05] Yeah, because if you look at— because
they're particular about what is And that—
[3:06:11] that's right, revenues are not rev— you
know, your, your reserves are not revenue.
[3:06:16] That's right. Even though you pull it in
and put it into revenues to spend as a
[3:06:21] revenue source, it's called other
financial sources. Yeah, that makes
[3:06:26] financial sources. Yeah, that makes
perfect sense.
[3:06:26] I mean, well, you wouldn't tell— that's
what I mean,
[3:06:30] you had $4 million in revenue that you
didn't have. You just had it on hand.
[3:06:35] It was prior revenue. Yeah, right.
[3:06:37] Well, you're basically using Your savings
account.
[3:06:40] So if I make $60,000 a year and I take
$10,000 out of my savings to buy a
[3:06:45] $10,000 out of my savings to buy a
vacation,
[3:06:46] I spent $70,000, but $70,000 is not
revenue. Only the $60,000 I earned was
[3:06:50] revenue. Only the $60,000 I earned was
revenue.
[3:06:51] Right, right. And the FEMA and FEMA
reimbursement is for the benefit of this
[3:06:56] reimbursement is for the benefit of this
board,
[3:06:56] but we wouldn't be showing that to the
auditors at all because it's not in hand
[3:07:01] auditors at all because it's not in hand
yet,
[3:07:02] right? We will be presenting our expected
revenue and That will go into—
[3:07:06] And what is that— where is that number
again? That's that $3,019,000?
[3:07:12] Right. Right. So that will be given to the
auditors so that they can put it on our
[3:07:18] government-wide statement, because in the
government-wide statement,
[3:07:22] it's kind of like a regular business.
[3:07:24] If I send out a bill to you in January,
it's revenue right then and there.
[3:07:29] We recognize it as revenue. So the
government-wide statement will recognize
[3:07:34] government-wide statement will recognize
it.
[3:07:34] Modified accrual accounting says we
recognize everything as expenses,
[3:07:39] and anything that is coming in within 60
days of the year-end close,
[3:07:43] we can put that in this year's revenue.
[3:07:46] It's going to take months for FEMA to get—
[3:07:49] Do you issue an amendment to your budget
when it does come in?
[3:07:53] I don't think that's necessary because
we're not really going to spend that extra
[3:07:58] money. We're going to put it back into
savings or our fund balance.
[3:08:02] We will record that asset.
[3:08:04] Yes, we're required to record that asset
as an estimated amount we're going to get
[3:08:09] in government-wide. And then next year
when the money comes in,
[3:08:13] it's reimbursing FEMA, right? That's what
I was telling you, right?
[3:08:18] I'm gonna send you an email because we
need to make sure we do something on that
[3:08:23] because the auditors If we do nothing,
[3:08:25] the auditors will say you had this asset
you didn't have on your books.
[3:08:30] So yeah, no, they'll get a schedule from
us saying—
[3:08:33] And whether we need to put an allowance on
it for any disallowed expenses would be
[3:08:39] the question. Well, what we're doing is we
expect to get 75% of what we're billing.
[3:08:44] So that's our estimate. It's not 100% of
what we spent.
[3:08:48] So that's where, that's where our
allowance comes in. $87.5 million.
[3:08:52] $87.5 million, yeah.
[3:08:54] Right. So yeah, $3.4 million is what we
spent.
[3:08:58] We're saying, hey, we're gonna probably
get $3 million,
[3:09:01] and that's allowing for the not getting
all the money.
[3:09:05] So, so actually then, I know I'm way out
here from normal accounting rules,
[3:09:12] but But if we were saying how much we have
saved in our original budget,
[3:09:18] it would be $898 million.
[3:09:21] Right. If the storm never happened,
[3:09:23] that's what we would have ended up the
year with.
[3:09:25] And, and, but the storm did happen and we
still wound up
[3:09:30] with that because we,
[3:09:32] we didn't have another pot of $4 million.
[3:09:35] We over— we, you know,
[3:09:37] when I came When we came back with the
request for the extra million,
[3:09:42] I was being told we were looking at $3.8
million or higher,
[3:09:46] and I thought we'd get another MOU or bill
back from the MOU. That didn't happen.
[3:09:53] It came out to that— MOU was at $2.3
million,
[3:09:56] so we added that to the $1.1 million that
we already spent.
[3:10:01] That came up to, what, $3.4 million?
[3:10:03] Yeah.
[3:10:04] Everything all included. Yeah. So we had
asked for more.
[3:10:08] That's why that was— yeah, showing,
[3:10:10] because we'd already amended that at $4
million.
[3:10:14] Right.
[3:10:14] We had, we had 2 or 3 amendments that I
think we did.
[3:10:18] One amendment for a million, then another
amendment,
[3:10:22] then we did 2.
[3:10:23] 2.
[3:10:23] Yeah.
[3:10:24] And then another one.
[3:10:25] Another one. So we had 3 amendments that
totaled $4 million. Yeah.
[3:10:28] So, yeah, so, but we didn't, you know, we
really— I mean, we didn't spend it.
[3:10:32] We didn't even have to pull it out of
LGIP.
[3:10:35] Yeah, well, and that's, and that's, and
that's great.
[3:10:38] And so, so then that's, I guess, when my
final question then is going to be,
[3:10:43] so of the $4 million we took out,
[3:10:45] we would put back $540,000 even though
it's already not been taken out,
[3:10:49] but we would be putting back $540,000
right now. We could do that right now.
[3:10:54] But it's already in there.
[3:10:56] Yeah.
[3:10:57] So we don't have to do that, but that's
how much it would be.
[3:11:02] And from the, the rest of the budget,
we've got, well,
[3:11:07] basically $900,000, and that $900,000 then
also goes back into
[3:11:12] the, um, reserves.
[3:11:14] That's right.
[3:11:15] Right. Okay. And then,
[3:11:17] and then we'll get our reimbursement And
then the only last thing
[3:11:23] that's unsolved is, so then where do we
make up the $340,000 or
[3:11:28] $350,000 that we possibly are going to be
left with?
[3:11:33] Well, that will come— that's already in
this year's expenses already.
[3:11:38] So because we're saying we've spent all
the money, so everything we spent,
[3:11:45] the storm paid for. And then when we get
the recovery back, we won't get all of it.
[3:11:52] We'll be $431,000 short, but that's
already paid for in this year,
[3:11:57] so it won't really have any impact.
[3:12:00] Right, but it was paid for with reserve
money.
[3:12:05] So that would technically be our portion
of reserve we, we pulled out.
[3:12:09] And that's what I'm just wondering, is it
Would it be the idea that to pay for that—
[3:12:15] I don't know if I'm even saying that
right— to pay for that $400,000— no,
[3:12:21] pay for that $350,000, the 10 to 12%
that's going to be—
[3:12:26] that we're not going to get reimbursed
for.
[3:12:29] To pay for that, we either just say it's
just a wash or— and we just—
[3:12:35] that's just what we had to spend out of
the reserves ultimately.
[3:12:40] Or is that the way to look at it?
[3:12:42] You can also look at it that we— And I'll
just wait till my—
[3:12:47] till I get through my report,
[3:12:50] but I'll tell you that we've already
recouped $590,000 from the TDEC grant.
[3:12:56] It's already in the bank that has come in
from our, from our T-DEF grant.
[3:13:02] So, you know, so we, we spent that. We got
that grant.
[3:13:07] That was what I— well, I don't want to
call it free money,
[3:13:12] but it was money that we didn't, we didn't
have a revenue source for.
[3:13:17] But we spent it on our culvert projects.
[3:13:21] Now we've turned that in, we've submitted
all that,
[3:13:25] and we've received about $85,000. 65% of
that.
[3:13:29] So we still have about, uh,
[3:13:31] we have about $36,000 left that we're
going to recoup from TDEC.
[3:13:37] The other, the other 65 is in the works
right now.
[3:13:41] So when they told— they told me— what is
today?
[3:13:45] Friday.
[3:13:45] They told me Friday that that $283,000 was
approved,
[3:13:49] and we got it, we had checked,
[3:13:51] and we got it deposited today.
[3:13:56] Wow.
[3:13:56] So, so that's, that's, you know,
[3:13:59] as much as I have complained and bitched
and whined around about that, I mean,
[3:14:04] we've got the money back. So we got the
money back. Okay. So.
[3:14:09] Yeah, that's good. That's money that we
spent and now we've gotten that back.
[3:14:13] And so then that's going to go— where
would that go?
[3:14:17] That's already in there. That's already in
the revenue.
[3:14:20] So that's in this $898,000 or $900,000?
[3:14:25] Uh, I don't know. Um, that, uh,
[3:14:27] $283,000 may not be in there because that
only came today.
[3:14:30] So that, that, uh, that came in after
these reports were made.
[3:14:34] Well, all of the revenue for, um,
[3:14:36] the 2 TDEC and ARPA grants have been
recognized as revenue.
[3:14:40] Okay, so it's, it's in the revenue
already. You've posted it already, right?
[3:14:45] already. You've posted it already, right?
Okay.
[3:14:46] The payments don't have anything to do
with the P&L. It just hits savings bank.
[3:14:51] Don't have anything to do with the real
cash.
[3:14:54] It has to do with cash, but revenue is
already recognized. So, all right.
[3:14:58] Well, thank you for— thank you for
answering my questions. I appreciate it.
[3:15:04] It gets confusing. It really does.
[3:15:08] Now, Deborah and I spent a lot of time
Passion back and forth about that $4
[3:15:15] million and how it was not revenue.
[3:15:18] And, um, so I had to look far and wide to
come up with that term—
[3:15:25] appropriations, appropriated financial,
financial appropriations—
[3:15:31] that is not revenue but is recognized in
this as From other sources?
[3:15:37] From other sources, from our savings, our
fund balance.
[3:15:43] So if this ever happens again, next storm,
remember that.
[3:15:48] You know, when you take that out, it's not
revenue. Right.
[3:15:54] That's why you have federal— this is kind
of accounting—
[3:15:59] is why you got the federal government
billions and It keeps us employed.
[3:16:06] All we can do is pity them because we're
not in debt.
[3:16:11] I know. I'm just talking about the way you
recognize it's revenue
[3:16:17] from non-revenue sources or whatever it
is. It is, but it isn't.
[3:16:24] It's a loan from one account to another.
[3:16:27] Now, if we had a water and sewer fund and
a general fund,
[3:16:32] then we could do a transfer in and a
transfer out.
[3:16:36] So the revenue would have appeared to
increase in the general fund.
[3:16:41] But where we're in the general fund, we're
taking money from the general fund.
[3:16:47] There's no transfer in and out. And if it
was, it would be a wash.
[3:16:52] So it wouldn't show up as revenue anyhow,
just to confuse it.
[3:16:57] Then we could build If you go back that
far, remember the Dighton Station?
[3:17:03] They used money from the Metro Water and
Sewer.
[3:17:07] Yeah, we found this money. Okay. All
right. Thank you.
[3:17:12] Deborah, please proceed.
[3:17:14] Okay. So basically, the general fund
revenue was $4.8 million,
[3:17:19] which is 118.5% of the amended budget. So
our revenues were increased.
[3:17:24] We had some higher-than-budget franchise
fees, state sales tax, TVA in lieu of—
[3:17:31] and the franchise fees,
[3:17:33] we actually got about $30,000 more because
the payment was late,
[3:17:38] and so they included all the money that
came in.
[3:17:42] Thank you.
[3:17:44] Up to the date they cut the check. So
that's why we got a little bit more. Oh,
[3:17:49] that's why we got a little bit more. Oh,
okay.
[3:17:49] Okay. And that was on the what?
[3:17:52] Franchise fees.
[3:17:53] Franchise fees. And we got more?
[3:17:55] You got $31,400 more than we budgeted for.
[3:18:00] Oh, I see. Okay.
[3:18:03] And building permits came in at $910,000.
Yeah.
[3:18:08] And we budgeted $600,000, so that's an
extra $300,000, almost $11,000.
[3:18:14] And if you look over to the expenses that
we spent for the, the general engineering,
[3:18:22] those higher expenses were offset by the
revenue.
[3:18:27] So because we spent the engineering, we
were able to recoup the revenue for it.
[3:18:34] And TDEC and ARPA have all been
recognized, and actually they have been
[3:18:41] recognized, and actually they have been
all billed,
[3:18:42] so we are all set, just waiting for money
to come in on those.
[3:18:48] And so that was an extra $257,000.
[3:18:51] And then we had some one-time accounting
adjustment revenue of $58,000.
[3:18:57] In the general fund for expenditures, Like
we talked about, it was $7,392,423,
[3:19:05] which represents 91.44% of the amended
budget.
[3:19:09] So we're coming about $691,000 under
budget.
[3:19:13] Again, we have the FEMA and the storm
cleanups we talked about.
[3:19:19] So garbage and recycling Garbage and
recycle, we were at $793,500 for the
[3:19:26] recycle, we were at $793,500 for the
revenue,
[3:19:27] which is 101.64% of budget.
[3:19:29] $12,000 of that was for a one-time
accounting adjustment.
[3:19:35] So we actually have a surplus in the
garbage and recycle of $21,400, which is
[3:19:42] garbage and recycle of $21,400, which is
good.
[3:19:42] And expenditures were only at 98.9% of
budget,
[3:19:47] so we saved about $8,600 there from budget
as well.
[3:19:51] So all in all, I mean,
[3:19:53] nobody likes to see a negative $2 million
at the end of net income,
[3:20:00] but we are getting reimbursed almost all
of that loss.
[3:20:05] Well, actually more than the $2.5 million
loss,
[3:20:09] so we will be getting that money back. So
it's not a bad year.
[3:20:15] We, we budgeted to spend $4 million more
than we— and we only spent $2.5 million.
[3:20:22] So, and every other city in this area will
be facing the similar challenges,
[3:20:30] and we are fortunate that we had money in
the bank to spend that because we would
[3:20:37] have had to take out loans or something
because our vendors wouldn't want to wait
[3:20:45] for 8 months it might take FEMA to pay us.
[3:20:49] So all in all, I think it's a good year,
and '27 will be even better.
[3:20:55] Yeah, well, I, I have to say I completely
agree with your assessment there,
[3:21:02] your conclusion. And Steve and, and Deb,
y'all are to be congratulated.
[3:21:09] Steve, for your management of the budget
and your management of the storm
[3:21:15] cleanup.
[3:21:16] Thank you.
[3:21:17] And, uh, it's— it was, it was big. It was
really big.
[3:21:22] And I have to tell you, I've, I've spoken,
uh, to a few meet-and-greet, uh,
[3:21:28] assemblages, assemblies over the last
couple of weeks,
[3:21:33] and I get applause when I say that we've
spent $4 million on the storm cleanup.
[3:21:39] You weren't expecting that?
[3:21:41] I wasn't expecting that. I thought they'd
say boo. But yeah, I mean—
[3:21:46] And no complaints.
[3:21:47] No complaints. I haven't heard any
complaints. No, everybody's happy.
[3:21:49] You know, there were a lot of people
really absolutely covered up and
[3:21:54] really absolutely covered up and
devastated by
[3:21:55] the storm and the debris that was around
their properties.
[3:21:59] I mean, it was— Well, you saw it.
[3:22:01] I mean, it was, it was bad, and it, it
just kept going on and on and on.
[3:22:06] I, I thought, I thought it was never going
to end.
[3:22:09] Yeah, yeah. Well, I was surprised because
somebody who lives up in the—
[3:22:14] I don't know if it's District A or B, but
up in that north end near Evans, um,
[3:22:19] said that they had huge piles of it up
there.
[3:22:22] And I said, where in the world did that
all come from?
[3:22:24] But So anyway, it was bad.
[3:22:26] And thank goodness, as you say, we had the
money.
[3:22:30] And that's, to me, that's why replenishing
the reserves is a priority.
[3:22:36] Absolutely. Yeah, you never know, the next
one could be even worse.
[3:22:42] I also want to do a shout out to Desiree.
[3:22:46] She builds all that $3.4 million already
to to Pima,
[3:22:51] which is a heroic— it's a lot of work.
[3:22:55] So she did a great job, and I just wanted
to thank her.
[3:23:01] Ah, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you,
Desiree. That's wonderful.
[3:23:04] Uh, I wanna, I wanna make a— I want to
throw out a plea here, um, to the board,
[3:23:11] because Desiree not only works here night
and day,
[3:23:15] but during this Storm cleanup and this
effort to file all of this,
[3:23:21] she took this work home on the weekends,
on the evenings.
[3:23:25] And when we have completed with all of our
submissions,
[3:23:30] we still have a small amount that we can
submit for her time and my time,
[3:23:36] and that's administrative.
[3:23:38] So whatever we have expended on
administrative for her,
[3:23:42] I would like to provide that number to her
as a,
[3:23:46] as a thank you and as a grant
administration fee,
[3:23:50] because she is responsible for getting
this submitted and done in a proper and
[3:23:57] accurate way that we're going to get Where
we're going to get our money back.
[3:24:03] So I just want to throw that out there. We
don't have to vote on that.
[3:24:09] I'm just making this announcement to you
all that I'll be coming with that.
[3:24:15] So when that money is returned to us, I
want to make sure she is rewarded that
[3:24:22] want to make sure she is rewarded that
way.
[3:24:22] And I hope you all see that the way I see
it.
[3:24:26] If we hadn't spent it with— if we hadn't
done it with her,
[3:24:30] we would have had to spend that money with
a— With with an outside firm.
[3:24:36] Mm-hmm.
[3:24:37] I'd rather do it in-house.
[3:24:38] And she's done, as Deborah says, she's
done an excellent job.
[3:24:41] Mm-hmm.
[3:24:42] So I just want to throw that out because
we,
[3:24:45] we can file for those administrative fees.
Um, she had hours, I had hours.
[3:24:51] You all know I've had, I had plenty of
hours that we, that were eligible to be,
[3:24:57] hours that we, that were eligible to be,
uh,
[3:24:57] submitted. Um, even, um, um, Victoria had
hours on that,
[3:25:01] but we'll be able to apply that and get
the 75 and the 12.5 back.
[3:25:06] So when it comes back, I'm hoping that we
would reward her with— for her efforts,
[3:25:12] because, you know, she's been burning the
midnight oil on this and,
[3:25:17] and doing it with a deadline in mind so we
could get this, get this in.
[3:25:22] You know, we don't want this money to go
away before we get a chance to be—
[3:25:27] have it rewarded back to us.
[3:25:29] And I also want to add that we are
probably one of the very few cities that
[3:25:35] probably one of the very few cities that
have
[3:25:35] actually filed our FEMA because most
cities won't.
[3:25:39] They'll— they're still probably gathering
paperwork,
[3:25:43] and I'm sure most cities will probably
take till the August deadline to get the
[3:25:48] filings in and maybe ask for extensions.
[3:25:51] So to do it in a couple of weeks is
phenomenal.
[3:25:55] So these other cities don't meet the
deadline and they just don't get
[3:26:00] deadline and they just don't get
reimbursement?
[3:26:01] You have to meet the deadline or, or they
might allow extensions.
[3:26:06] They might or might not. Yeah, exactly,
exactly.
[3:26:09] Okay, so you'll bring that back to us?
[3:26:10] I'll bring that back up, yeah.
[3:26:12] Okay, well, that's, that's wonderful,
wonderful to hear,
[3:26:17] and thank you again, Desiree.
[3:26:19] So anything else on the financial reports?
[3:26:23] We'll be setting up the reports for FY27.
[3:26:26] I'm going to put together the work papers
and send them off to the auditors and get
[3:26:32] our audit started, and we're in good
shape.
[3:26:35] And we'll probably see some additional
audit fees because we'll get a—
[3:26:40] what is that called— Class A or A1 audit?
A1 audit. Single audit.
[3:26:45] Single audit, right.
[3:26:47] Because anything— anytime you spend over
$750,000 in a fiscal year,
[3:26:51] you'll get an audit for that. And we've
done that.
[3:26:55] Well, it's, it's a, it's a more stringent
audit.
[3:26:59] So you have your normal audit, but once
you go over this million-dollar threshold,
[3:27:05] the government gets really picky to make
sure that every dime you spent was
[3:27:10] appropriate. So it's just extra work and
extra level of detail that they have to
[3:27:16] perform.
[3:27:17] Okay. It's a— what's the threshold?
[3:27:21] $1 million. It used to be $700,000,
$750,000. Federal funds.
[3:27:25] Oh, federal funds.
[3:27:26] Federal funds. Okay.
[3:27:28] Yes. All right. Okay.
[3:27:30] Well, everybody, everybody's
[3:27:34] Everybody's in it.
[3:27:36] Yeah.
[3:27:38] All right. Okay. Well, is there—
[3:27:40] then is there a motion to accept the
financial reports?
[3:27:44] So moved. Second.
[3:27:45] Price moved and DeMarco seconded.
[3:27:47] Any further discussion?
[3:27:49] All in favor of accepting the reports,
please say aye.
[3:27:53] Aye.
[3:27:54] Any opposed? All right. That's 4-0. And
with our thanks.
[3:28:01] Thank you. Thanks for, uh, your patience
and waiting till we got through with that.
[3:28:04] Yes, thank you for that. Sorry.
[3:28:06] Luckily I had some other projects on, uh,
getting ready for the audit,
[3:28:10] so I'm going to work on that. I'm glad you
told me to go back there.
[3:28:14] You didn't want to listen to all of that?
[3:28:19] I, I did miss it. I really want— It'll be
on the web here soon and you can watch it.
[3:28:24] Somebody wants to talk to you about
galvanized fences.
[3:28:28] She may, uh, she may have wanted to hear
it, but I didn't want her to hear it.
[3:28:33] You wanted me to spend my time with
fishing, right? Yeah, right.
[3:28:37] All right, um, Mr. Mayor? Yes?
[3:28:41] This chart, whoever did the chart, that's
really well done.
[3:28:46] Yeah.
[3:28:46] And if— and because that's so clear-cut,
easy to understand,
[3:28:50] and It would be nice to memorialize it
somehow in a newsletter for citizens like
[3:28:55] somehow in a newsletter for citizens like
the
[3:28:55] gentleman that was in here a few months
ago complaining about, you know,
[3:29:00] why we didn't pick up his leaves.
[3:29:02] That's right.
[3:29:04] You know, that that would be a good thing
to spend city money on.
[3:29:08] A year ago, last July, no one in the City
of Oak Hill foresaw that kind of expense.
[3:29:14] falling on the city.
[3:29:15] And it is— we are so fortunate to have had
conservative fiscal management by the
[3:29:21] city manager and this commission.
[3:29:23] And that ought to be, as I say,
[3:29:25] either memorialized in the newsletter or
framed somewhere for future reference.
[3:29:31] Because I'm saying— It ought to be in the
newsletter for darn sure.
[3:29:36] Yeah, we'll definitely put it in the
newsletter.
[3:29:39] Last July, nobody in the City of Oak Hill
foresaw that kind of dollar demand on this
[3:29:45] city. And I want you to know, do you
recognize that street on that photograph?
[3:29:50] I believe that's on the mayor's street.
No, it's not.
[3:29:54] I'm sure it's not, uh, because I,
[3:29:57] I don't recall us having a porta-potty out
there
[3:30:01] on the street.
[3:30:02] I don't know where— well, it, um,
[3:30:05] it's a main thoroughfare because it's got
double yellow That's a tiny boulevard.
[3:30:10] Oh, now you're passing the buck. That's
where my porta-potty was in Winston.
[3:30:16] Winston put that porta-potty out there
when the store moved in.
[3:30:20] He wasn't taking any chances.
[3:30:22] Oh me. Um, all right, well, I think we are
now at the public comments.
[3:30:29] And we have none— no one here left to
comment,
[3:30:33] so we'll move on to the next item, which
is old business, and we had none.
[3:30:41] That's number 8. Number 10— we've done 9—
we're at 10, public comments.
[3:30:47] Again, no one here. 11, staff reports.
[3:30:51] All right, Tommy Campsey.
[3:30:54] Oh, that's right.
[3:31:03] I'll go quick. All right,
[3:31:05] so we had a total of 7 instances that took
place in the last 30 days.
[3:31:11] I've sent them to the Metro Sergeant that
he will get back to me.
[3:31:17] He's— last 2 months, he's got back with me
2 or 3 days after I give his report,
[3:31:24] so I'll forward that on to Mr. Collie.
[3:31:27] We have 2 frauds, 2 car burglaries, 1
burglary, 1 motor vehicle theft,
[3:31:33] and 1 assault. The, the first fraud was
committed in the 800 block of Tremont
[3:31:40] committed in the 800 block of Tremont
Court
[3:31:40] on 6/25. The burglary was committed on
6/26. 27 in the 900 block of Travelers
[3:31:47] 6/26. 27 in the 900 block of Travelers
Court.
[3:31:48] The motor vehicle theft was committed on
July 1st,
[3:31:52] and that was in the house across from, you
know, where the Lipscomb soccer field is,
[3:31:59] right there by the church.
[3:32:01] There's a house over there, and it was—
that car was taken from it.
[3:32:07] A car burglary was— Was that Casey Riggs'
house up there? Do you know?
[3:32:13] The, the car was stolen from the 3700
block. They don't give me the actual
[3:32:20] block. They don't give me the actual
number.
[3:32:20] Uh, the car burglary was hap— uh, it took
place in the 4700 block of Franklin Road.
[3:32:28] I know that one took place at John Overton
High School.
[3:32:32] Uh, another fraud took place on July 20th
in the 4000 block of Outer.
[3:32:38] The assault was committed on July 21st at
3 o'clock in the afternoon.
[3:32:44] That's kind of crazy.
[3:32:46] I don't know whether that was strict road
rage or what,
[3:32:51] but it was in the 5100 block of Granny
White. Where is that?
[3:32:56] 5100 block of Granny White?
[3:32:59] It's on— it's way out. It's close to
Norwalk Boulevard.
[3:33:04] Oh, okay.
[3:33:05] Oh yeah, well, it's— well, we don't go all
the way. Yeah, is it That far out?
[3:33:08] Yes, sir.
[3:33:09] Okay. That may not have even been in Oak
Hill.
[3:33:12] And then the last thing we have is a car
burglary that was committed in the 700
[3:33:18] block of Blevins, and that's it.
[3:33:20] Nothing— great thing about it, you can
look at this, yeah,
[3:33:24] we're not too happy about 7 things, but
there's no crime of violence, right?
[3:33:30] So as long as we don't have anything
personal involved, I, I feel decent about
[3:33:36] personal involved, I, I feel decent about
it.
[3:33:36] I mean, okay, this is as good as it's
going to get, to be honest with you, in,
[3:33:42] in crime. You're not— you know, this is—
it's not Camelot, but it's pretty close.
[3:33:48] You know, as long as we deal with property
crimes instead of personal crimes,
[3:33:54] we're all good. Okay, anybody got any
questions?
[3:33:59] No questions? Nope. Thank you. Thank you,
Tommy.
[3:34:02] How are the Vols going to do this year?
[3:34:08] Uh, I don't know. I'd like to say we only
had
[3:34:14] 2 losses, Georgia and Alabama.
[3:34:18] Play Alabama at home.
[3:34:21] All right, City Manager.
[3:34:24] Okay, um, uh, we have, uh, discussed a lot
of things already on my report,
[3:34:29] but I am here to, um, serve you all with a
subpoena— no,
[3:34:34] I mean with a notice of the, uh, of the,
uh, uh, special call meeting.
[3:34:39] This way I'm giving you your, uh, letter.
[3:34:42] Oh, okay.
[3:34:43] So there's Scott and there's Vice Mayor
Winston Evans. Here's Mayor Grimes.
[3:34:50] And the, uh, Grimes and David DeMarco
right there.
[3:34:54] And I, I'll have to send, uh, O'Dell to
her.
[3:34:58] So I just want to let you know that there
will be a special call meeting,
[3:35:04] as you mentioned, Mayor, on August 19th at
1 o'clock, 1 PM.
[3:35:10] And we will, um, hopefully, uh, pass the
second reading of the of the ordinance.
[3:35:17] Now, it seemed like people were relatively
okay with the amendment because they
[3:35:24] didn't revolt when they left. So maybe
second reading will go through as planned.
[3:35:31] I don't know. What do you think?
[3:35:34] I would think so. I mean, unless, you
know, again,
[3:35:38] it depends on what audience you get.
[3:35:41] Is there anything else we—
[3:35:43] this board needs to do on that document
before it
[3:35:47] comes up for a second reading?
[3:35:50] I think we might hear something about the
solid fences only being allowed
[3:35:56] behind in the accessory structure in D, E,
and F. I hope not, but we might.
[3:36:02] We'll have a public comment, not a—
[3:36:08] Okay.
[3:36:08] So we've had to pull up public hearings.
[3:36:11] So, um, okay, so back to, uh, back down
to, uh,
[3:36:15] just other things going on in the day in
the life of the city manager.
[3:36:21] Uh, you all knew that we had gotten
Evansdale and Kingsview paved, and, uh,
[3:36:27] we are in the process of running the
milling process process over Battery Lane.
[3:36:34] That started the casting— raising the
castings and the milling started tomorrow.
[3:36:41] Starts tomorrow, and paving starts next
week, starting on August 4th.
[3:36:47] And we have sent out communication to the
neighbors on the side streets of Battery
[3:36:54] Lane and down some of the other streets to
notify neighbors that we're going to have
[3:37:01] heavy equipment and paving equipment out
there. So just let them know.
[3:37:07] Um, Steve, excuse me.
[3:37:09] Yeah, are we doing the Waterswood, um,
piping or whatever?
[3:37:13] The Waterswood culvert project?
[3:37:16] Yeah, culvert. Yeah, we're, uh, is that
part of this?
[3:37:18] No, that, that's, uh, not part of this.
Okay.
[3:37:22] I was hoping to get that I thought it
would be done before we paved,
[3:37:27] but we'll just have to go back and pave
it. Funny you mention that.
[3:37:33] I'm meeting with Kimberly Horn tomorrow to
go over the drawings and the plans for
[3:37:39] Waterswood and for Lakemont up here.
[3:37:42] So I was just looking at the— at our— at
my rate— at our budget that we passed,
[3:37:49] my rate— at our budget that we passed,
and,
[3:37:49] um, what I'm seeing Is we put $155,000 in
there for Waterswood and Lakemont,
[3:37:56] and we also put $284,000 in for culverts
and other projects.
[3:38:00] So I'm guessing it's probably going to
take all of that.
[3:38:05] That looks like about, uh, $430,000 for
both of those projects.
[3:38:10] This one up here at Lakemont It's going to
be expensive.
[3:38:15] It's 15 feet down, so it's going to be a—
[3:38:18] Oh.
[3:38:19] Pretty, pretty good project.
[3:38:21] But just to remind you all, that culvert
under that street has collapsed.
[3:38:26] So as it rains and these big gully washer
rains come in,
[3:38:30] it's just getting worse and worse.
[3:38:33] So we've got to get on that as soon as we
can get— look at it.
[3:38:37] And see if, um, if, if it's a project that
we can do with our public works or if
[3:38:43] it's a project we're going to have to bid
out. So we'll, we'll know that.
[3:38:49] I'll be a little bit more closer to
knowing the answer to that tomorrow
[3:38:54] knowing the answer to that tomorrow
afternoon
[3:38:55] after I talk to Kimberly Horn. But we
have, we have a meeting to go over the
[3:39:00] have, we have a meeting to go over the
plans.
[3:39:01] But that's, um, that's in our— that's what
we put the money in here for.
[3:39:06] for us to take care of these, these
crumbling infrastructure.
[3:39:11] Um, so I wanted to tell you about that. I
want to tell you about Battery Lane.
[3:39:17] Um, we should have enough money after
Battery Lane to pave Shadowstone and
[3:39:22] Battery Lane to pave Shadowstone and
Rainbow
[3:39:23] Place. Um, the other streets that are
seriously— got serious problems,
[3:39:28] I don't know I don't know if you all know,
[3:39:31] if you've been up on Green Valley Drive
lately,
[3:39:34] that if you remember how bad the sinking
street was on Norfleet and Prescott,
[3:39:40] Mm-hmm. This is even worse.
[3:39:42] I mean, there it starts to sink and then
there's a big hole right in the middle of
[3:39:48] the sinking portion. But that's got to be
repaired. And I may just have to, Yeah.
[3:39:54] Just, just get it and, um,
[3:39:56] take some money from somewhere and just go
ahead and get them, uh, get them fixed,
[3:40:02] fix that. But, uh, I've got, um, Davis
Duncan,
[3:40:06] my cohort in crime in the paving that
works for Sessions.
[3:40:10] He's gonna give me an estimate on that
this week. He's very good.
[3:40:15] He's very good at his job. He's very
trustworthy. He's right on top of it.
[3:40:20] it, and, uh, he's, he's, he's a good, good
man to work with.
[3:40:26] Um, okay, so, so we've got Battery,
Shadowstone,
[3:40:29] and Green Valley for paving in this fiscal
year.
[3:40:32] No, uh, we got Battery, Shadowstone, oh,
uh, Rainbow Place.
[3:40:37] Rainbow Place.
[3:40:38] Uh, what I don't have,
[3:40:40] what I don't have budgeted for or
estimates on is Cherrywood and, uh, Green
[3:40:47] estimates on is Cherrywood and, uh, Green
Valley.
[3:40:47] But they are in dire need of attention.
[3:40:51] So if you get a chance to drive up either
one of those streets,
[3:40:56] you'll see what I'm talking about. We, in
the budget, we talked about the TDEC ARPA.
[3:41:04] We have submitted We submitted all the
charges, uh, including the $258,000 in
[3:41:11] charges, uh, including the $258,000 in
match,
[3:41:11] the $738,000 in grant,
[3:41:13] and we are starting to see that money roll
back in here to us.
[3:41:19] And I think I mentioned earlier that
we've, uh, we've submitted everything,
[3:41:26] we've, uh, we've submitted everything,
and, uh,
[3:41:26] they still owe us, um, of the $100,000
they owe us, They will approve the
[3:41:33] they owe us, They will approve the
$65,000,
[3:41:33] um, this week, and we should see that next
week.
[3:41:38] And then all we have left from them is
about $36,000,
[3:41:43] and it'll probably be 2 or 3 weeks before
we get that because we've got some other
[3:41:50] deliverables that we've got,
[3:41:52] just documentation we've got to clean up
and send to them.
[3:41:58] So that will end the TDEC ARPA program.
[3:42:01] So my question to you is, if you enjoyed
this one,
[3:42:05] will you want to get the next one?
[3:42:08] Because there are other grants out there
that are TDEC grants, not ARPA,
[3:42:15] but grants that we can get to do culverts
and other roadway issues.
[3:42:21] So if you're interested in that,
[3:42:24] I can bring those back to you when we get
We could do it again.
[3:42:29] It won't be as document and time sensitive
and restrictive as this TDEC grant,
[3:42:36] but because this was ARPA, this was
actually federal money.
[3:42:42] And, um, but they're out there.
[3:42:44] But it comes with that, you know,
[3:42:47] because Oak Hill is not a depressed
community and it has money in the bank.
[3:42:54] Yeah.
[3:42:54] We have a higher percentage of our match,
[3:42:58] and we're going to get hit with 25%, 30%,
or 35% match on these.
[3:43:03] But still, I think it's good money after
good money.
[3:43:07] Yeah, 65% is better than nothing. Yeah,
absolutely.
[3:43:11] Yeah, I agree, absolutely. I'd love to see
those.
[3:43:14] So I say we, we, we, we keep pushing on
this.
[3:43:18] The big ARPA, the federal ARPA that we—
[3:43:21] they just handed us a check for $1.3
million. That's been spent.
[3:43:26] We spent it on culverts and cleanup and
all the things people want to hear about,
[3:43:33] about getting these culverts up.
[3:43:35] And we did spend some of that money on,
um, on the T-deck because we ran over,
[3:43:42] we ran over on some costs there.
[3:43:44] We have spent all that money and it's all
been, uh,
[3:43:48] it's been reported and we've met the
timeline on reporting back to the state
[3:43:54] timeline on reporting back to the state
and
[3:43:55] local finance slurf is what they call it.
And so we feel pretty good about that.
[3:44:01] We've got our big ARPA spent, we've got
our TDEC spent,
[3:44:05] we're getting our TDEC money back, and so
we're rolling here.
[3:44:10] But we've We've handled $2 million worth
of cleanup and fix-up on culverts and
[3:44:16] stormwater in this city in the last 2 and
a half years. Yeah, yeah.
[3:44:22] Let me just ask you what—
[3:44:24] I know where we are on the big list of all
the water projects, stormwater projects,
[3:44:30] but how about the culvert cleanup that
Clean Earth was doing?
[3:44:34] Did they finish that project citywide?
[3:44:37] Yes, yes they did. Everything that we had
on our list, on our map,
[3:44:42] we had a GIS map for that and their guy in
their truck took that map and when he
[3:44:47] found one of those green dots that we put
out there for him,
[3:44:52] he went out and cleaned them up.
[3:44:54] That was the barge map? Wasn't that the
barge map?
[3:44:57] No, actually they provided a map,
[3:44:59] but we developed a map through Kimby Horn
with GIS that had—
[3:45:04] because they collected the—
[3:45:06] Barge collected that modeling and then
they provided it to us.
[3:45:10] So we built that map for the government
guys.
[3:45:13] But it didn't get all— I mean, it didn't
get every single culvert.
[3:45:18] There's still culverts out there that need
to be cleaned up.
[3:45:23] And maybe it might be some of them that we
cleaned out and they've already Hmm.
[3:45:28] But when a basketball rolls in a culvert
and it clogs it up,
[3:45:33] there's nothing you can do but, you know,
get it out. I mean, it don't come out.
[3:45:38] But we feel pretty good about closing out
these ARPA's.
[3:45:42] But we won't, you know,
[3:45:44] we won't have that money to play around
with next year or maybe even the next
[3:45:49] with next year or maybe even the next
year.
[3:45:50] It'll take us a couple of years to develop
a plan.
[3:45:56] Yes, sir.
[3:45:57] Um, you had mentioned— it's mentioned
previously, I thought,
[3:46:01] in a conversation that you were looking at
doing Battery Lane paving at night.
[3:46:06] Is that still true or no? We talked about
that.
[3:46:09] They have not given me that indication
that they're going to do it. Okay. Okay.
[3:46:14] They are putting extra traffic people out
there. Okay.
[3:46:18] And They're not going to be paving on the
weekends.
[3:46:21] Okay.
[3:46:22] They didn't tell me that.
[3:46:24] I noticed they had put out traffic cones
and people had run over a number of them.
[3:46:29] They were smushed. Hey, Battery Lane. It's
a narrow road.
[3:46:33] If you step out of the car out there,
you'll get run over.
[3:46:37] Yeah.
[3:46:37] I mean, it's, uh, people drive crazy on
that street.
[3:46:39] And they're going to slow down because
they can't get around some of this
[3:46:43] equipment unless they slow down.
[3:46:45] Is it going to be one lane at a time?
[3:46:46] One lane at a time. They're going to all
shift over to Tyne again.
[3:46:51] Yeah, the, um, and we're just doing the
Soaper.
[3:46:54] We're doing the Soaper even though Oak
Hill,
[3:46:57] we'd be responsible for that south lane.
[3:47:00] I'm glad you brought that up because I
have developed a relationship with our
[3:47:05] have developed a relationship with our
NDOT
[3:47:06] people. So when we start talking about
Paving that, I called Phillip Jones,
[3:47:11] who's now the assistant director at NDOT,
and I said, Phillip,
[3:47:15] we have a shared challenge,
[3:47:17] and we can either pave that and you can
pay us back in an MOU,
[3:47:21] or you can have your people pave it and
you can do it on your dime,
[3:47:26] because you got to pave it and mill it and
fix it anyway.
[3:47:30] And they've agreed that they will pave
that part between Soper and Leland.
[3:47:35] So they're going to pave that. Oh my
goodness.
[3:47:38] Yeah, so that's about a $90,000 project.
But that's a good relationship.
[3:47:43] They're paying— they're paving all over
the county, okay?
[3:47:47] I mean, they're going everywhere paving.
[3:47:49] So he thought it was— he thought they
could do it.
[3:47:53] He ran up the flagpole, he came back,
said, we'll take care of it,
[3:47:57] our paver will pave that when you all get
done. We'll come back and pave that part.
[3:48:03] With no charge to us?
[3:48:05] Yeah, no charge to us.
[3:48:06] Wow.
[3:48:08] Because he's going to have to pave half of
it anyway.
[3:48:10] We've got to get equipment out here.
[3:48:12] So, I mean, paving the other side is not
going to be that much more.
[3:48:15] That's great.
[3:48:17] And we're not going to— he's just going to
eat our half. Yep. That's the story.
[3:48:20] Dadgum.
[3:48:23] So thank y'all very much. Thank you.
[3:48:26] Yeah.
[3:48:27] Anyway, so that's where we're going with
that. I'm glad you brought that up.
[3:48:33] I left that off my notes. $45,000. Oh my
God.
[3:48:37] And you all, we've already had the
discussion about the debris removal and
[3:48:43] discussion about the debris removal and
that's
[3:48:44] been submitted. Again,
[3:48:46] I can't say enough about Desiree and her
hard work and Working with the FEMA team
[3:48:53] hard work and Working with the FEMA team
on
[3:48:53] getting that together. That little sheet,
that little— I call it the dashboard.
[3:49:00] That was made so you could take home with
you.
[3:49:03] I'm not going to go over every piece of it
right now,
[3:49:08] but me and Claude worked on that. You know
Claude?
[3:49:12] I've heard of him.
[3:49:14] Well, he's a pretty good guy. Oh, oh,
Claude, yeah. I want to show you what I
[3:49:20] Claude, yeah. I want to show you what I
did.
[3:49:21] I took this information right here that
Desiree put together after she got through
[3:49:28] doing her— see this information right
here, FEMA?
[3:49:32] It's got debris removal, Category A,
Category A, Category B, total FEMA,
[3:49:38] the state of Tennessee, TEMA.
[3:49:41] I put that into Claude and said,
[3:49:44] Make me a slick dashboard that provides
all this information in a board-ready
[3:49:50] all this information in a board-ready
deck,
[3:49:51] and it came back with that. That's good.
How many prompts did you have to do?
[3:49:57] As long as it took me to explain it to you
is how long it took for me to do it.
[3:50:04] And Desiree's always saying, how long did
it take? Less than 30 seconds.
[3:50:10] That's an AI. Program? Yeah, that we, we
have a— we have ChatGPT.
[3:50:16] I call it Claude, but there is a Claude
that does, um, does, uh, Excel
[3:50:22] that does, um, does, uh, Excel
spreadsheets.
[3:50:23] But, uh, our ChatGPT is a state-sponsored
website that we, we tagged on to.
[3:50:30] Uh, in a related matter, what is the
charge There's no charge.
[3:50:35] You can buy it, you can upgrade it.
[3:50:38] It's like $20 a month to upgrade it to do
more things and have more entries and all
[3:50:45] that, but as far as the basic usage of
that, there's no charge to us.
[3:50:51] You just can— there's some things I've
heard where companies have used so much of
[3:50:58] They call them tokens, and people have
just busted budgets. We're not doing that.
[3:51:05] We don't have that. We don't have that AI.
[3:51:09] You've got a flat rate to— Yeah, flat
rate.
[3:51:13] Flat rate.
[3:51:14] I've got a situation where I have a client
and they had their 3 or 4 properties that
[3:51:20] are at issue and the value of that.
[3:51:22] And so they fed their appraisals into an
AI program.
[3:51:26] And they fed the state's appraisals in,
and the AI came back and said,
[3:51:31] your appraisals are better than the
state's, and here's why.
[3:51:35] The question is, could you submit that to
the judge? No, it's not admissible.
[3:51:40] Who's the witness?
[3:51:41] I'd put it in. I'd put it in as an offer
of proof. I'd want to make a record.
[3:51:46] I'd love to send it up.
[3:51:48] Okay.
[3:51:49] So that concludes my report.
[3:51:53] All right, good report. Very good.
[3:51:56] You know, in my opinion, a lot of good
news.
[3:52:00] Yeah, yeah, it's all, all very good news.
[3:52:03] Um, okay, and let's see now, Steve, um,
we've got the, we've got the,
[3:52:10] um, meeting coming up, the special called
meeting,
[3:52:14] and then we've got another meeting,
regular meeting,
[3:52:19] on August 20-something. I can't remember
when it is. 26th? 20th?
[3:52:25] 25th.
[3:52:26] 25th. August 25th. Okay.
[3:52:28] And are we, um, planning to have any
business there, uh,
[3:52:33] other than the swearing-in and all that
sort of—
[3:52:37] We have not had that.
[3:52:38] We haven't done much more than the
swearing-in and the basic, you know,
[3:52:43] minutes and Financials.
[3:52:44] And right, you know, we only had— we
weren't going to have July,
[3:52:48] and it's not going to be much for July.
[3:52:51] So yeah, that's what I was wondering,
whether there was anything else in the
[3:52:55] whether there was anything else in the
hopper.
[3:52:56] Is there anything else in the hopper?
What's coming up next?
[3:52:59] Well, so we're going to have the election.
Yeah.
[3:53:02] And then we'll have the special call
meeting.
[3:53:05] Then I've got to wait till the election
gets certified.
[3:53:09] And it usually is done like Friday before
the Tuesday of that— of our meeting.
[3:53:15] But we can't swear them in until we get
that certification back from the Election
[3:53:20] Commission. But they, they, uh,
[3:53:22] they usually set up a meeting on a
Thursday before the last month,
[3:53:27] so we'll get the certification on Friday,
[3:53:30] and then we'll be ready to swear in the
new people on Tuesday.
[3:53:34] Okay. Mm-hmm.
[3:53:36] And then after that,
[3:53:38] I don't have anything pressing to bring
before the board in August.
[3:53:43] All, you know, we've been concentrating on
getting this second reading for the 19th.
[3:53:49] So, but on the 19th, we are having that
special call meeting at 1,
[3:53:54] and we're having our workshop at 2.
[3:53:57] Right. Right.
[3:54:00] And there's not much of an agenda on that.
[3:54:04] Partly, not because I've been lazy,
[3:54:06] basically why we don't have anything is
because we've been closing out these ARPA
[3:54:13] accounts and getting all this,
[3:54:15] all the budget closed out and making sure
we have all that done and getting all
[3:54:21] these submissions made through TDEC.
[3:54:24] So that's where all my That's where our
energy has been.
[3:54:28] Okay. Okay. I had another question there
about along those lines here,
[3:54:34] but I've forgotten it, so probably just as
well.
[3:54:39] So let's move on to the next item here,
which is requests for future agenda items,
[3:54:46] which I think we've sort of— I know, I
know, maybe—
[3:54:50] Mr. Price just wants to Load you up with
work.
[3:54:54] He didn't bring the whole list, just the
top 10.
[3:54:58] Right. Okay. We got to find a new job for
him.
[3:55:06] And surely there's a vacancy in the BZA,
the Planning Commission.
[3:55:11] Think of the experience the man has. Hey,
assistant city manager would be good.
[3:55:17] Could use some help now. We don't pay
anything.
[3:55:20] All right, this has already turned into a
4-hour meeting,
[3:55:25] so can we— does anybody have any requests
for agenda items?
[3:55:29] I do.
[3:55:29] Okay.
[3:55:30] I think this one, at least according to
the city attorney,
[3:55:35] has already been discussed and worked on,
but for the wording,
[3:55:40] accessory structures must be behind the
sidelines of the main structure.
[3:55:47] We've thought we've gotten that in the
last 2 amendments and we haven't,
[3:55:53] you know. Madam Recorder,
[3:55:55] didn't we work on that in a meeting in
here a couple of meetings ago?
[3:56:01] We worked on a change.
[3:56:03] I remember, but that was for the fence.
[3:56:05] Well, that was for this ordinance though,
wasn't it?
[3:56:10] No, no, I didn't think so.
[3:56:11] Well, it's one thing we've got to—
[3:56:13] No, I think it was for something else.
Okay, well, we need to get that.
[3:56:19] If we don't have it, we need to get it.
[3:56:22] So the accessories are behind the primary
structure.
[3:56:26] Sidelines of the main structure.
[3:56:29] Right.
[3:56:29] Sidelines of the main structure.
[3:56:31] And I thought it came up in discussing
what's happening Over on—
[3:56:34] Yeah, Robertson Academy. Yeah, yeah, may
have, but we still need to pass it.
[3:56:40] We didn't— we haven't done anything with
it.
[3:56:43] I think that's what you're raising, is
that we haven't.
[3:56:47] And then also that accessory structures
must be built simultaneously with the main
[3:56:54] structure or after the main structure.
[3:56:57] And then clarify That a driveway with a
basketball court on it is not a sport
[3:57:04] basketball court on it is not a sport
court.
[3:57:04] It's a driveway with a basketball court on
it.
[3:57:11] And, um, that's all.
[3:57:13] Yeah, we need to bring that before us.
[3:57:16] Um, you remember that discussion?
[3:57:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[3:57:20] And we definitely need both of those, both
of those elements.
[3:57:24] Well, I knew that it's the way I
compartmentalize things.
[3:57:28] I knew we couldn't do anything about it
with this one because it's too far.
[3:57:33] This was a fence.
[3:57:34] Right.
[3:57:35] And that was a bridge too far for now. So
I knew we were going to do it later.
[3:57:41] But yeah, I'm familiar with all of those
discussions because that whole sport court
[3:57:48] pool and that whole paragraph's got to be
restructured.
[3:57:53] And the accessory setback lines have got
to be clarified for those— any structure,
[3:58:00] any accessory behind the house. But
that's—
[3:58:04] And the order of construction, I think
that's really important too.
[3:58:07] I've got a question on that the other day
going back to this Robertson Academy
[3:58:11] thing.
[3:58:11] That whole Robertson Academy thing.
[3:58:16] So if, you know, the plan was that they
would
[3:58:22] bring their plan back in a day or so and
have that
[3:58:28] house plan done.
[3:58:30] Yeah.
[3:58:31] It was all in the same conversation.
[3:58:33] They just never got to getting that demo
plan and all the other plans in here.
[3:58:39] So kind of blame that on the individual,
but we should have, you know,
[3:58:44] kind of fell through the cracks because
that was in between Steve leaving and the
[3:58:50] other people coming in.
[3:58:52] And we didn't, you know, he didn't keep
records,
[3:58:55] so we didn't know what the conversation
was.
[3:58:58] Well, Jeff had said he was supposed to
come in like a week.
[3:59:03] He was due to come in with the plans for
the house next week.
[3:59:07] And that was 3 weeks ago or 4?
[3:59:09] I thought it was the next day.
[3:59:10] That's happened. He brought the plans in
for the house.
[3:59:14] They've been back in with plans. They got
permits and all that. Okay, good.
[3:59:20] He's talking about the original. I'm
talking about the original. Gotcha,
[3:59:25] talking about the original. Gotcha,
gotcha.
[3:59:25] So there was— the whole conversation was
about simultaneously building pool house,
[3:59:31] garage, and building all at one time.
[3:59:34] But Snow let them start that garage with
the idea they were bringing their plan in
[3:59:40] because they showed him a plan. They just
didn't give him a plan.
[3:59:44] And that's kind of the way he works
sometimes.
[3:59:47] Gotcha.
[3:59:51] Which I don't agree with.
[3:59:52] Okay.
[3:59:58] All right, so that was—
[3:59:59] that's good, David. Thank you for keeping
up with that. That's very important.
[4:00:05] Um, and so then the next, uh, item is
board comments.
[4:00:10] Um, and so Commissioner DeMarco, do you
have any comments?
[4:00:14] Um, have we done the city manager
evaluation yet? No.
[4:00:19] Okay, and that's on you. Is that in your
court?
[4:00:21] My court. Okay, it's due Okay.
[4:00:27] That's all.
[4:00:27] I may lose the election and then you would
just be stuck without one, I guess.
[4:00:32] No, you won't, because the, the, the bonus
is already in the budget.
[4:00:37] And if I don't hear anything, I guess I
just assume that the budget's—
[4:00:43] that the bonus is maxed out and we'll go
ahead and pay it out.
[4:00:48] Budget bonus by default. I like that. I
thought you would.
[4:00:56] All right, uh, Commissioner Price, do you
have any comments?
[4:01:00] No parting comments or shots or anything?
[4:01:02] I'm honored to serve you today. We're
honored to have had you.
[4:01:05] We got one more meeting to go.
[4:01:06] Okay.
[4:01:07] Man, we have really enjoyed Scott. We hate
to see you go. He did his duty.
[4:01:14] But hey, thing is The city manager knows
where you live.
[4:01:19] And if I need you, I'm coming.
[4:01:22] All right. Vice Mayor Evans?
[4:01:26] None.
[4:01:26] Have anything? Okay. Well, I don't have
anything either.
[4:01:30] So with that, except I guess I failed to
say when all the people were leaving at
[4:01:36] say when all the people were leaving at
the
[4:01:36] end of our discussion of the fence
ordinance that I really appreciated all of
[4:01:41] ordinance that I really appreciated all of
them
[4:01:42] coming and making their comments, and it
helps the process,
[4:01:46] and we're glad they came and filled our
room for a change. So—
[4:01:50] And most were polite and respectful.
[4:01:53] Yes, they were. So thank you very much,
and we are hereby adjourned.
[4:02:09] I'm glad I didn't bet on how long this
meeting would last because I would have
[4:02:16] meeting would last because I would have
lost.
[4:02:16] How long do you think it lasts? I said 2
and a half hours. Oh really?
[4:02:22] What's that thing they're advertising? Did
he? Is that what he said? Yeah.
[4:02:29] I don't know. Oh, I'm gonna hit the
restroom.
[4:02:33] Yeah, I'll be right back. I've never been—
[4:02:36] well, I didn't catch that.
[4:02:38] Didn't the guy, the first guy that spoke,
[4:02:42] that was insulting us basically?
[4:03:15] It looks like it was.